Essay On Organ Shortage

Every ten minutes someone in need of an organ is added to the national organ transplant waiting list (Unos). The major problem with the transplant list is that it has been growing bigger and bigger every day and there aren’t enough organs to fill the needs of all these people. Although America is one of the most developed countries in the world, we lack organ donation policies. Unlike America and Germany, places like Austria, Finland, Greece, and Spain all have “Opt-out” laws, which helps raise the rate of organ donation drastically (Zúñiga-Fajuri). In recent years there has been a major decline in the amount of organs being donated; this can be blamed on how and where people are “dying” and the fact that they aren’t organ donors (Bryan). In order to

combat this problem the government and scientists have been working together closely. Some ideas on ways to fix this problem include; making everyone an organ donor, giving organ donors an incentive, and growing human organs in animals.
Organ shortage has become a major problem not only in America, but throughout the whole world.

Today over 114,000 people are on the transplant waiting list (Unos). This is a major problem because at this point in time, with the policies that many countries have, there are never going to be enough organs to get the people off of this list. The organ shortage issue has become an “epidemic” throughout the world; “About 30 Americans a day either die on the waiting list or are removed from it because they have become too ill to receive a transplant” (Humphreys). If this doesn’t bring the problem of organ shortage to the eyes of the citizens or the politicians, nothing ever will. Innocent people are losing their lives every day because many countries have such poor laws on organ donation. Since January 2018, of the people who passed away throughout the world, only 4,109 of them have donated their organs (Unos). This a frighteningly low number of people considering how many organs are still needed throughout the world. We as a society need to figure out the best ways to get more people to donate their organs, or figure out ways to essentially make organs because people don’t deserve to lose their lives over one “bad”

organ.
Fixing the organ shortage problem must start with the government; countries need to figure out a way to get more people to donate their organs. To start out they need to make people more aware of the benefits of donating their organs. One donor can save eight lives (Unos). Educating people on this is a big deal because they will feel more inclined to donate once they learn that they will be saving more than one person’s life. The human body has six vital organs that can be transplanted, which include: kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, pancreas, and intestines (HRSA). This is also a vital piece of information for potential donors to be educated on because they will begin to understand exactly what parts of their body will be donated, and just how much they can benefit the people on the transplant list. However, educating people on the benefits of organ donation will only help gain a few more donors, it won't be nearly enough to meet the needs of the transplant list.
To further this idea of getting more organ donors, more countries need to switch from using the “opt-in” approach to using the “opt-out” approach. The “opt-in” system makes people sign up to be an organ donor; while the “opt-out” system makes everyone a donor unless a request to keep organs is made before death (Mcintosh). This idea of the “opt-out” system has already been successful in different parts of the world,” European countries that had implemented the presumed consent principle saw as much as 99% of their populations registered as donors, compared with about 30% with the opt-in approach” (Hill). The “opt-out” has been very successful in getting people to donate because people are already signed up for donation, instead of making people sign up to be a donor. As we can see this approach already worked in many European countries, and the amount of people who registered to be donors had increased by almost 70%. Many countries throughout the world are still using the “opt-in” approach, if every country used the “opt-out” approach, the transplant waiting list would shrink drastically.
To try and solve the organ shortage issue throughout the world countries can give people who donate their organs an incentive. People would be more likely to donate organs if they received something in return, “A financial incentive for deceased organ donation could be accomplished by the following approaches: (1) a direct payment for organs, (2) an income tax or estate benefit, (3) a reimbursement for funeral expenses, and (4) a contribution to a charitable organization determined by the family or the deceased” (Medscape). The American government clearly has many ideas on how to pay donors for their organs, they just need to follow through and make their ideas into reality. If other countries around the world also made this change, the national organ transplant list would shrink drastically. Despite the fact that the organ shortage has just become a huge concern within the last 10-15 years,” Thirty years ago this week, President Reagan signed the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA), which established the federal legal framework for the procurement, donation and transplantation of organs needed by desperately ill Americans” (Humphreys). Even though this bill was signed over thirty years ago, it is finally coming into action because of our huge need for organs. This bill would allow for money to be given to the donors for donating their organs and to the people receiving the organs (Humphreys). The people receiving the organs would be able to use the money to pay for the transplantation of the organs and any hospital bills accumulated from that. United Network for Organ Sharing stated that, “ the first-year billed charges for a kidney transplant are more than $262,000” (Sutter Health). Giving people money to donate their organs would not only help decrease the number of people on the transplant list, but also help decrease the amount of money the government and the recipient have to pay for dialysis and the organ transplant itself.
The final way that scientists have been trying to fix the organ shortage problem is by growing human organs inside of animals. The process of producing these organs involves,” generating stem cells from a patient’s skin, growing the desired new organ in a large animal like a pig, and then harvesting it for transplant into the patient’s body” (Wade). This new idea could help grow organs and decrease the size of the national organ transplant waiting list, without directly having to find more organ donors. This process can also be more successful than a standard transplant because the organ would be made of a patient’s own cell, leaving less room for immune rejection (Wade). There are many positives to growing human organs inside animals; however, one downfall is that an animal's brain could easily be altered by human cells (Wade). This is one of the few downfalls of using this technique and scientists are currently trying to figure out a way to work around this. Growing human organs in animals could be the way of the future. This process would help save thousands of lives each year; it would help simplify the transplantation process and help hundreds, if not thousands, of people to get off the transplant list each year.
Throughout the world there has been a major organ shortage epidemic. The lack of organs being donated can be blamed on the fact that most people aren’t organ donors, and if they are, they are dying in ways that make their organs unsalvageable. This issue can be solved in two main ways; by finding more people who are willing to donate their organs or by figuring out a way to grow new organs. We as humans need to figure out a way to bring the fact of organ donation into the sight of more people because the need for organs is going to be endless. Candidates waiting on the transplant list would be greatly benefited if people were given an incentive to donate their organs because we would see more people sign up to donate, which in turn would save lives. Also, the candidates would greatly benefit from the use of an “opt-out” approach because people wouldn’t have to go out of their way to sign up for organ donation, so they would be more likely to donate their organs. The final reach is to grow people new organs; this process is also helping these candidates because they can be given a new functioning organ without having to rely on other people. If we bring this organ shortage problem into the view of the public and the higher up governments, they will be able to see just how serious it actually is; then we can figure out more ways to save the lives of these people waiting on the organ transplant list.