Abbott seeks to boost organ donation rate.

Abbott seeks to boost organ donation rate. :

"Australia has one of the best success rates for organ transplants but has one of the lowest organ donor rates internationally."

You cannot tell people how they will be when they are confronted with the loss of someone they know and love. You cannot make it cut and dried. Given how things go when people die, you cannot count on the families being properly consulted and included in the loop when it comes to organ donation. You cannot say people are selfish when the loss of someone can send them spinning into oblivion for years. Organ donation is sensible and altruistic but the practice can be very distressing when it is your child, your sister, your husband, your mother. It becomes very personal and therefore needs to be handled better. If we are poor at donating there will be a very human reason for that. In our family we have discussed it quite openly. My own belief is the ones who are surviving need to make the decision because sometimes you really are not in the frame of mind to allow that dead person to be cut open. Sometimes it is done with a great deal of insensitivity to those who are left grieving. So, we need to sort out the procedures and the protocols for the living and then we might be more comfortable with the notion of donating.