Thursday 28 February 2008

Surgeon ’hurried up’ patient's death to get at his organs

This is what can come from a system that is a little too anxious to harvest organs for transplant.

In the US transplant surgeon Hootan Roozrokh has been charged with attempting to hasten the death of a patient. He is accused of administering drugs to finish off potential organ donor, Ruben Navarro, in order to be able to harvest his organs, after his mother had been advised he would not recover and was persuaded to donate his organs.

Roozrokh was not even supposed to be in the room, but waited there while the patient’s respirator was removed. The patient continued to breath on his own. He then ordered a nurse to administer drugs. The patient still continued to breath on his own and he ordered another nurse to administer yet more drugs.

The patient still hung on and finally died some eight hours later.

If this can happen without Gordon Brown presuming state ownership of our organs how much more likely is it when Drs know they have the state’s blessing to literally take Gordon Brown’s 453.592 g (1 lb) of flesh?