Organ donations !

To our shame - Australia is amongst the lowest when organ donor donations are counted. Body parts that could save the lines of others are being interred in the earth and left to rot - or burned to ashes in crematoriums.

Surprisingly, when the question is raised the majority of people indicate that they would be perfectly willing to donate organs when they die. They just never get around to placing their name on the donor list - or telling their loved ones of their wishes.

What doesn't help is the timidity with which government handles this issue. Even when a person has clearly indicated their wish to be a donor, we second guess that decision by demanding agreement from relatives.

The ideal solution would be to make organ donations compulsory - unless an individual opts out and takes the trouble to make that decision clear. Unfortunately, to do that would spark outrage from some religious groups and claims that the government was infringing human rights and acting in a ghoulish manner.

A middle way would be to legislate to uphold the wishes of the donor. Those who sign on to donate organs should not have that decision second guessed and referred to relatives.
Hospitals would need to have the identity of all donors on their computer records - and to proceed with retrieval automatically once that person was deceased.

In the absence of timid government moving to solve this problem, the only remaining option is to crank up publicity to create an understanding of lives lost because of donor inertia. At least donor figures are slowly moving in the right direction.

Maybe we need to shift the emphasis from potential donors talking to their loved ones to make their wishes known, to the entire family discussing the matter and reaching common agreement.

Maybe in such circumstances, the whole family may join the donor register !