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The Nasty Side of Organ Transplanting.

Chapter 8

The Nurse’s Tale

Transplant coordinators and donation agencies tirelessly promise donor families their loved ones will be treated with dignity and respect. Families are led to believe that unaffected people with a higher cause dismantle the bodies. But an American nurse who has worked thirteen years in the transplant field in the United States says,

“The families are led to believe they are doing such a noble and wonderful thing by donating their loved ones organs. I tend to believe, in their moment of grief, they are not thinking clearly. This is what happens.

A patient is declared brain dead. The family gives consent to remove organs/tissue/etc. This body is trying to “die", but we keep it alive artificially till suitable donors can be found. Sometimes this can take many hours, as precise tissue matches are not always at the ready. Meanwhile, the body is deteriorating.

My role in all this was waiting in the operating room. ‘Are they ready to start this retrieval yet? No, they can't find anybody to take the heart (just an example).’ So when they finally do find a recipient, teams come in from various parts of the country to harvest the various organs. The patient is brought to the operating room, and the procedure is begun. The heart is removed first, followed by the other organs. Sometimes an organ is not taken because there was no recipient, or it is taken just for research. Occasionally an organ is deemed unusable due to a disease process. Immediately after the organs are removed, the various doctors whisk them away in coolers, never giving a thought to the person who just died or the grieving family. They have no idea of even the person’s name. So one by one, these ghouls leave the operating room till all that is left is the body, laying WIDE open, quiet, & cold, and the nurses.

Usually some underling of a resident is left to sew the body shut. It is a hideous sight. And the smell of death is starting to permeate the room. Nauseating! So the body is closed, and that doctor leaves and all we have is the body and the nurses. It’s left up to the nurses to clean up one holy hell of a mess, and take care of this body that has been defiled and forgotten. We must pull all the various tubes and lines out of the body to make it presentable for the family. As the tubes are pulled out, this horrible stench exudes from the depths of this former person. After all, he has been kept alive artificially, and his body has been trying to shut down naturally.

As we are cleaning him up, we try very carefully not to slip and fall in the blood and fluids that cover the floor. I try to keep in mind that this could be my family member, and I take great pains to clean the body as best as I can before taking it to the morgue and yet keeping in mind the fine doctors that just left this nameless patient. They are flying home in their Lear jets, laughing and partying, awaiting their future glory for “saving” some poor suckers life with a transplant.

Sorry to sound so glum, but I can't help but think if families could see how their loved ones were treated, they would never consent to the taking of organs.”^[54]