Organ Shortage in Transplant Surgery

Health Economics

Question 1
a) i) The below picture shows that with each year, the number of patients
waiting for organ transplant are increasing, which is seen to exceed the
number of donors and transplants. The shortage can occur due to the
following reasons:
Figure 1: Organ Donation statistics
(Source- "Organ Donation Statistics | Organ Donor", 2019)
As opine byLiu, Ho & Liu (2017), there is an increased risk of generating
end-stage renal disease (ESRD) after the donation of the organ. Organs
must be transplanted immediately after the death of the person, provided
he has died in the hospital. The organs mostly come from people who had
died in the hospital either in the intensive care unit or were under
ventilation (Iltis, 2015). The number of people dying under this

circumstance is decreasing, so there is an increased shortage of organs
for transplantation surgery.
Additionally, there are a small proportion of deaths that might permit
organ donation; the organs received from donors may not always be
acceptable. In the last 12 years, for example, the percentage of clinically
obese donors has increased from 15% to 25% (Lewis, Weaver & Caplan,
2017). Lack of sufficient doctors to meet the organ transplant demand is
another reason for organ shortage and transplant surgery. Inefficient
practices led to lack of information spreading about the availability of the
organs and thus, the neediest patients become the second one to respond
to this opportunity (Emiral
et al., 2017)
ii) The Law of Demand states that if price of a commodity increases the
demand for that good will decrease. However, the condition of organ
transplant market clearly contradicts this statement (Matsuyama, 2019).
It is seen that though the prices of organs are increasing, the demand for
organs are also increasing day by day. Ministry regulations affect the
organ transplant system as sales of organs have been banned from some
countries and only, organs can be transplanted if it is donated (Mochtar
et
al., 2017).
Medical economists evaluate the effects of the current legal policies by
using a quality supply and demand model, here, applied to buying and
selling of kidneys (Stoler
et al., 2017). When they couple the supply and
demand model along with the ideas of producer and consumer surplus,
they can then estimate, may be hypothetically, the social and cultural

welfare outcomes of current legal policies of Australia on trading of
kidneys. In order to explain this, the supply-demand curve shows that
when the price of the organ is very low (for kidney), more than 7500
kidneys are supplied by the donors. However, it is estimated that more
kidneys would have been supplied if the price were $20,000. Thus, the
curve drawn from this statistics gave a linear supply curve.
Figure 2: Supply-demand curve for organs
(source- "The market for human kidneys", 2019)
The above figure shows the market-clearing price and quantity of $20,000
and 12,000, respectively. Rectangle A and C denotes the loss to suppliers.
If patients received kidneys at no cost, their gain would be sketched by
rectangle A less triangle B. Rectangles A and D measures the total price of
kidneys when supply is constrained. It is this time when the organ
transplant market gains maximum profit as the patients invest all their
money to but the organ hen supply is less. The linear curve obtained is
estimated to have:

Supply
: QS = 8000 + 0.2P
It is expected that at a price of $20,000 the demand for kidneys would be
approximately 12,000 each year. Whereas, the demand is measured as
Demand
: QD = 16,000 - 0.2P
The below figure shows a demand curve for kidneys. The distance OA is
the maximum price anyone would be willing to pay for kidney transplant.
The distance OC is the current demand for kidneys, and corresponds to
the approximately 70,000 transplants needed.
Figure 3: Demand curve for kidneys
(Source- "The market for human kidneys", 2019)
iii) As per the previous discussion, the market demand curve for organs
that are required for transplant is found to be price inelastic. The supply
curve shows it to be perfectly inelastic as the demand for organs does not
decrease with a hike in organ selling price.

Figure 4: Perfectly inelastic supply-demand curve
(Source- "Elasticity & Its Applications", 2019)
b) Medical integrity- Patients and the public must trust their doctors. Blood
transfusion is to reconcile the claim of oneself with another (Trey
et al.,
2016). Scientific validity- The basic principles of technology and biology
must be clear enough to carry out the transplantation procedures (Yazici
Sayin, 2016).
Consent- This must be professional concern to the donor Cadaveric
transplantation- The cadaveric kidney must be provided to the recipient
with the consent of the donor’s family (Sibulesky, Govindan &
Bakthavatsalam, 2017). Request or forced- The donors must not be forced
to donate their organs. Elective ventilation- Must be executed properly, so
that the organs are not damaged at the time of death (Hulme
et al.,
2016).
7. Live donation- Donors must be provided with sufficient follow ups so
that they don’t get infected with renal disease (Jivraj, Scales & Brierley,
2016). Related donors- They must be willing to donate their organs to
their blood relatives.