Medical Assignment: Debate on Opt-Out Organ Donation in Australia

This medical assignment presents a debate against the opt-out system of organ donation in Australia. The report argues that the opt-out system, despite its success in countries like Spain, England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, is not suitable for Australia due to various reasons. It discusses the financial aspects of organ donation, including the high costs of transplantation and pre-transplant procedures, which are not always covered by insurance. The assignment highlights the need for incentives to encourage organ donation, but it suggests that the opt-in system should be favored. The report further summarizes the negative impacts of the opt-out system on families, considering religious and cultural aspects, as well as the financial burden, ultimately concluding that the opt-out system should not be adopted in Australia.

Running head: MEDICAL ASSIGNMENT
MEDICAL ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1MEDICAL ASSIGNMENT
Debate topic- The opt-out system of organ donation should be adopted in
Australia.
Organ donation means giving an organ or organs to someone who needs that particular
organ to survive. Transplantation of organs is one of the biggest achievement of modern
medicine which save and enhance the life of the people (Stoler et al., 2016). In different
countries like England, Scotland and Northern Ireland transplantation of organs and tissues are
done successfully, however in Australia the number of donors have failed to rise. The system of
organ donation has almost been opt out in Australia. The opt-out system of organ donation
should not be further adopted in Australia. The opt-out system of organ donation means that the
person can donate the organ of his body only when they expire. The demand for the organ donors
rises much faster than the original number of available organ donors. In the opt out system, the
majority of the people supports the process of organ donation but the very small percentage of
population are found to be registered eve at the time of dealt of the persons. Spain has the highest
success rate or organ transplantation however not only in Spain the success rate is high in
England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Australia has still not shown a higher success rate of
organ transplantation.
One of the reasons of not adopting the process or organ transplantation in Australia is the
cost involved in transplanting the organ and before transplanting an organ. The hospital only will
not bear the cost of the transplantation. The patient must have money and insurance for the
transplantation to be done. As the number of donors are very less in comparison to the
requirement of the acceptors, incentives are provided for encouraging them to donate the organs.

2MEDICAL ASSIGNMENT
As the success rate had been low since a long time, the system of organ procedure should not be
started (Isdale & Savulescu, 2015).
The opt-in system is the method of organ donation where explicit consent are required
from the donors for the transplantation. As in the opt-out system, the donor is not allowed to
donate the organs before his death, the opt –in system should be followed. One of the effective
way to increase the organ transplantation is educating people about the advantages of
transplantation of organs to the people. The other way is to give money to people for donating
organs (Tremellen & Savulescu, 2015).
The opt-out systems of organ donation impact the family and the religious and the
cultural aspects of the people and also the financial aspects of the organ donation. The family of
the patient have to bear the huge cost of the process of organ donation along with the hospital
authority (Matjasko et al., 2016). After even spending such a huge amount of money there is no
surety that whether the health of the patent will increase or not. After considering all these issues
it can be said that opt-out system of organ donation should not be adopted in Australia.

3MEDICAL ASSIGNMENT
References
Isdale, W., & Savulescu, J. (2015). Three proposals to increase Australia’s organ
supply. Monash bioethics review, 33(2-3), 91-101.
Matjasko, J. L., Cawley, J. H., Baker-Goering, M. M., & Yokum, D. V. (2016). Applying
behavioral economics to public health policy: illustrative examples and promising
directions. American journal of preventive medicine, 50(5), S13-S19.
Stoler, A., Kessler, J. B., Ashkenazi, T., Roth, A. E., & Lavee, J. (2016). Incentivizing
authorization for deceased organ donation with organ allocation priority: The first 5
years. American Journal of Transplantation, 16(9), 2639-2645.
Tremellen, K., & Savulescu, J. (2015). A discussion supporting presumed consent for
posthumous sperm procurement and conception. Reproductive biomedicine online, 30(1),
6-13.