Ethical and Legal Issues in Human Organ Donation: A Nursing Practice Case Study

NURSING PRACTICE

Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 3
Ethical and legal issues................................................................................................................. 3
Identify the facts........................................................................................................................................ 3
Determine the ethical principle........................................................................................................... 3
Explore the options.................................................................................................................................. 4
Act................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 5
References........................................................................................................................................ 7

Introduction
The case study involves an incidence of Human organ donation where Jim, 22-year-
old student died an accidental death and was opted for organ donation for transplant but Jim’s
parents indicated that Jim was against organ donation. However, Jim was not opted out of
human organ transplant programme and therefore his parents were powerless to stop donation
process. The identified ethical issue in this case study is harm to the autonomy of patient’s
family and legal issue is lack of informed consent from the patient. The purpose of this study
is to analyse the identified ethical and legal issue for developing proper action to overcome
these issues helping to resolve the case.
Ethical and legal issues
Identify the facts
The fact involved in this case study is that Jim parents are powerless to control his
organ removal process because HOTA act principles favour the medical decision taken by
doctor and transplant coordinator decision. Further, Jim’s parent claim does not have any
evidence to prove that Jim was against organ donation because he was not opted out of
human organ transplant programme. People who do not want to donate organ generally opt
themselves out of childhood itself.
However, Jim died three days after he suffered severe injury, this time was sufficient
for the doctor to generate an informed consent from Jim regarding his organ donation this
makes a legal negligence issue in this case (Veatch & Ross, 2015). Further, as per ethical
norms, if a patient is dead then his family has right to make medical decisions in case of
missing advance directive or informed consent. Therefore, no organ removal is possible
without consent from Jim’s parents.
Determine the ethical principle
Stake Holders - This case study is a proper situation of organ donation and transplant as per
the rules and regulations provided in Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA). According to
Kessler & Roth (2014) studied HOTA norms indicate that people died in hospital especially
accidental dead or brain dead are most suitable for organ (kidney, heart, liver and corneas)
donation. Therefore, as Jim in provided case confronted a brain death due to the accident is