[57]. Australian Law Reform Commission, Human Tissue Transplants, Report No. 7, 1977, paragraph 26. In 1977, the ALRC conducted an inquiry into appropriate legislative means to establish legislation in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) for the preservation and use of human bodies for various purposes, including the use of organs and tissues for transplantation. These laws are very similar and create different legal frameworks for living and deceased tissue donations. The Victoria Donor Tissue Bank (DTBV) is a multi-tissue bank that treats skin, bone, cartilage, tendons, connective tissue and heart valves for transplantation. DTBV provides surgeons with safe and effective tissue grafts for orthopedic, cardiothoracic, reconstructive and burn care. The Microbiology Laboratory is authorized by the Therapeutic Goods Administration to perform tests on cadaveric tissue for transplantation. [35].
Immunosuppressants are a class of drugs that suppress the human body`s immune response when it recognizes or attacks foreign organs or tissues. They are used to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs by the recipient`s body. If the deceased consented to the donation, in all states and territories, elderly parents may approve (or consent to Victoria) the removal of the deceased`s tissue for transplantation, unless: It is likely that the implementation of a number of the Task Force`s recommendations would improve organ donation and transplantation rates in Australia. At least in the short and medium term. International experience and, closer to home, the South Australian experience have shown that a standardized donation process in hospitals, combined with a proactive donor identification program led by well-trained transplant coordinators, can help convert many potential donors into actual donors. [3] [84]. Many Australians pledge to donate organs, but do not sign up to donate their organs. According to the 2006 Australians Donation survey cited above, the top reasons why Australians did not become organ and tissue donors were either too busy or simply not thinking about it.
See Australians Donate, Community Perceptions on Organ and Tissue Donation for Transplantation, op. cit. cit., p. 39. A number of commentators attribute the gap between a commitment to organ donation and actual registration for donation to apathy. In cases like this, where people want to do the right thing but are too busy or too lazy to do so, Thaler and Sunstein recommend using what they call the architecture of choice. Decision architecture is about influencing the context in which people vote to help them do the right thing. To achieve this, the environment is modified to influence behavior through pushes rather than coercion. Thaler and Sunstein cite the replacement of an opt-out with an opt-in organ donation system as an example of electoral architecture. R. Thaler and C. Sunstein, Easy does it.
How to make lazy people do the right thing , The New Republic, April 9, 2008, pp. 20-22. The NSW Organ and Tissue Donation Service (OTDS) provides clinical and operational management of organ and tissue donation in New South Wales. Detailed information on organ and tissue donation in New South Wales, including facts and statistics, is available from OTDS. It is important to put organ donation in perspective. Without wishing to minimize the value of the act of organ donation, it is an act that must be considered objectively. Freeing debates and political considerations from the terms of the doctrine of donation would serve to open up a broader debate on organ donation. This, in turn, would allow serious consideration to be given to the presumed option of a consent system and the possibility of a payment system for institutions, should such an option prove necessary.
The result of such a debate could be more realistic and innovative approaches to organ donation, ultimately saving more lives in Australia and New Zealand. Titmuss` defense of donation in terms of blood donation is largely a product of the historical moment and the social and political context in which it was written. It has therefore been overtaken and undermined to some extent by subsequent developments.