My first thought when viewing UPMC’s website focusing on organ transplantation was how recipient-oriented the webpage is. I suppose that they assume that most potential people searching their website are potential patients (clients) who are in need of a transplant and not simply giving up an organ out of the good of their own heart. It surprised me (I’m not sure why, actually) that two of the main side tabs are “Financial Considerations” and “International Services.”
Under “Financial Considerations” I was shocked at all of the preliminary hoops that one must jump through to even get consideration for the transplant process—if there is no money (or insurance) then there is no hope, really (the hope that was promised all over the website). Who was the hope promised to? The affluent.
Speaking of which—the majority of the black and brown bodies featured on the site were found in the “International Services” section. The services were not quite up to the Cuban resort (slight exaggeration—but only slight) discussed in Nancy-Hughes’s article “Commodity Fetishism in Organ Trafficking,” however, the services provided to (wealthy) foreigners seeking medical treatment were far beyond any treatment that I have received anywhere. Below is the list of hospitality services posted on the website:
§ arrangements for an interpreter to greet patients and their families at the airport and accompany them to their prearranged housing location
§ assistance with air and ground travel
§ arrangements for accommodations, depending on each patient’s needs — Family House provides convenient, affordable housing for patients and their families traveling to Pittsburgh for treatment of serious illnesses.
§ assistance in planning tours, day trips, and shopping trips as requested
§ reading materials, such as periodicals and books, and videos in each patient’s language
To me, it sounds like a pretty fabulous vacation.
When discussing donation, the website goes through great pains to present the donor body in a very particular manner. Lesley A. Sharp informs us in “Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and The Transformed Self” that kidneys “can be transferred legally and with relative ease from living kin; recent news accounts also indicate a rise in the national incidence of kidney’s offered by friends and even strangers to patients in need. This sort of organ transfer is referred to as living donation…” (Sharp 5) These facts are supported by the UPMC website which under Organ Donation facts lists that “About three-quarters of all live donors are relatives of their recipient, most commonly a brother or sister,” and “The number of unrelated donors has nearly tripled since 1998.” The living donation is where we find the donor body within the webpage. The donor is presented as a hero who gives “hope” and is “life-saving”…and is healthy and happy post-surgery. We, the viewer, are prompted to be an organ donor with phrases such as
“People of all ages and medical histories should consider themselves potential donors. Your medical condition at the time of death will determine what organs and tissue can be donated. Even those who have received an organ transplant themsleves may be an organ donor.”
“You have the power to save lives and improve the quality of life of those in need of any form of transplant.”
What disturbs me most is the lack of information on cadaveric donors (deceased donors) since UPMC tells us that most organ donation comes from cadaveric donors. Sharp would tell us that this is because cadaveric donation “places a heavy emotional toll on all concerned parties because of death’s inevitable presence. Recipients, donor kin, and transplant and procurement professionals alike must make sense of transplantation as a lifesaving technique that nevertheless relies on donors’ deaths and surgical removal of their organs.” (Sharp 15) I have to wonder about what thought process UPMC undertook here. Are they concerned that potential patients facing organ failure may not be able to handle the emotionally-charged concept that they may only have a shot at living due to someone else’s death? Or are they simply avoiding the topic as not to face it publically, themselves? The sole reference to donor kin which I was able to find was only mentioning that parents and spouses may decide to donate one’s organs (assuming that you have not declared otherwise in a living will, etc.). It did not surprise me that there was almost no mention of donor kin since it appears as though the recipient is not to think about where their “new life” is coming from.
Works Cited:
Lesley A. Sharp. Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self. Berkely: University of California Press, 2006.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Commodity Fetishism in Organs Trafficking. Body & Society, 2001.
UPMC’s website:
http://www.upmc.com/Services/TransplantationServices/Pages/default.aspx 11/4/10
I would agree that the recipient is not to think of where their "new life" is coming from. I feel like, on some psychological level, the idea is that thinking that they, the recipient, were in some way the "cause" of another person's death would be a devastating realization. At the same time, there is an idea that contact between donor and recipient would prolong grieving in the donor kin. I feel, though, that this is all a ruse of some kind. The spiritual nature of the donor kin-recipient relationship could, I feel, have a healing effect on both ends.
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ReplyDeleteI like that last sentence on your comment. I also just thought something else, in a way I think that another type of anxiety related to receiving from cadaveric donors is that it reminds us of how disposable bodies are one we are dead, or declared to be dead. I think it haunts us because WE could also be disposed of once dead.
ReplyDeletejust some fresh thoughts.