I’ve taken time off from blogging for the last few months because I was taking care of myself with my own self styled mental/emotional therapy. For fifty years my parents ran a “Mom and Pop” side street grocery store in my home town of Chisholm, Minnesota. To honor and remember them I have built from memory and a pitiful few photographs, a scale model replica of the store and the attached house. The project took the better part of two years and was completed yesterday Sunday November 1, 2009. When I get some pictures taken I will post them.
As to blogging, there is something that has bothered me for quite some time and that is the fact that there seems to be a great number of people using disabled parking illegally. As you know I had a heart transplant a little over two years ago. My new heart is working extremely well and if anything I have more energy than ever before. Unfortunately I have COPD (chronic oppressive pulmonary disease) which makes it extremely difficult for me to breathe. Almost any exertion leaves me out of breath so I have a disabled parking permit and use the spaces often. They are a Godsend when you can’t walk very far.
What disturbs me is the number of people who think the rules don’t apply to them and when it comes to disabled parking they fall into two categories, 1) those without permits that ignore the signs and 2) those that have permits that belong to someone else.
The first group is easy to deal with. If you see a vehicle in a disabled space that has neither special license plates nor a permit hanging from the rear view mirror, notify the authorities. In most cases there is at least a $250 fine for this deliberate violation of the law and of the rights of the disabled.
The second group is more difficult to deal with. I fully recognized that not every disabled person is in a wheelchair, I’m not so in many cases when I see people hang the tag on the mirror and walk to the store I ignore it. People deserve the benefit of the doubt. But, when I see people park, display the permit and then sprint across the lot into a store I get angry. Too many able bodied people use permits issued to friends or family members. I know of some people who are using permits that were owned by deceased relatives. How disrespectful can you be?
Many people who are awaiting transplants but are ambulatory need those spaces. They are not reserved for lazy people but rather for those who genuinely need to be close because they can’t walk very far. Many other people who are not transplant candidates also have very serious disabilities that require them to park as near to their destination as possible. Without disabled parking many people would be forced to either stay at home or face the danger of having to walk farther than they are physically capable of doing.
I was at an art show with my wife recently and I parked in one of the few disabled spaces that were available. Two burly guys in a pickup truck pulled in next to me in the space reserved for Vans for the disabled and began to sprint away. I rolled down the window and told them it was not a parking space and that they should move. They got quite belligerent and after several profanities and hand gestures they grudgingly moved — a half block away. I’ll bet the walk absolutely exhausted them.
You should do the same. Challenge people who park illegally, notify the authorities. The space they occupy may be the one you or a loved one will need someday.
Please comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org. And – spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors. On-line registration can be done at http://www.donatelife.net/index.php Whenever you can, help people formally register. There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance. If you convince one person to be a donor you may save or positively affect over 50 lives. Some of those lives may be people you know and love.
You are also invited to join Organ Transplantation Initiative (OTI) http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=152655364765710 a group dedicated to providing help and information to donors, donor families, transplant patients and families, caregivers and all other interested parties. Your participation is important if we are to influence decision makers to support efforts to increase organ donation and support organ regeneration, replacement and research efforts.
Is it ethical to compensate people for their organs? That is the question that has perplexed ethicists since long before human organ transplantation became a reality. Even 18th century philosopher Emmanuel Kant had thoughts on the subject because the poor were being exploited for their teeth, teeth that were transplanted into the empty gums of the very rich.
Is a global market for organ sales the answer? Can a for-profit system exist, save lives, and still not exploit the poor? A series of experts — medical doctors, international health experts, and ethicists — looked at the issue on Feb. 8, 2008 in the second of four Harvard conferences on current controversies in global health. http://organizedwisdom.com/helpbar/index.html?return=http://organizedwisdom.com/Ethics_of_Human_Organ_Transplants&url=www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/02.14/01-organs.html
The present altruistic system of obtaining and allocating organs in the United States simply doesn’t work. When you have a situation in which there are one hundred thousand people waiting for organs and several thousand dying because of no organ availability then something must change. There are many options but medical ethicists and UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing), which controls the entire American system, are so hung up on the ethics of transplantation that change has become impossible albeit extremely necessary. While the ethicists argue people are dying.
I write this blog not as an advocate for selling human organs but as an advocate for the dying. What is wrong with considering some sort of compensation? I believe we can avoid a situation in which the desperately poor are lured into selling their organs and become vulnerable to exploitation in the growing industry known as “transplant tourism.”
Some time ago I wrote a blog headlined, “Would you sell a kidney for $47.000. The blog outlined a plan by an Australian physician that would set up such a system. It was not an offer to buy a kidney. Yet, I have received at least a dozen emails from people who want to sell their kidneys. Some have good reasons others just say they need the money.
I don’t believe in setting up a worldwide market for human organs. I believe as do many ethicists that the poor, underprivileged and uneducated would become victims. I do, however, believe that we can compensate people in some manner, perhaps paying for related medical expenses (especially in the case of kidney donors who may have uncovered complications). There may also be some merit in compensating donors for funeral expenses.
According to Luc Noël, who tracks transplantation issues for WHO (World Health Organization of the United Nations) in Geneva, in the United States alone, one additional donated kidney a month to each of 58 donation service areas would create equilibrium — an equal number of waiting patients and available organs — by 2013.
The point it that we must do something. To let UNOS continue to stonewall this horrible situation is unforgivable. At least try a new plan in a test site for a year or two. Perhaps a combination of presumed consent and some sort of compensation would be workable but let us at least test a concept instead of continually discarding all options without trial.
Every year thousands die waiting for organs yet there is no public outrage. Why not? Why aren’t we all angry about the fact that people are dying unnecessarily? It is time that the number of available organs increased. The altruistic approach isn’t working UNOS! It is killing people and your intransigence is responsible.
I’m tired of people who say, “It can’t be done, it won’t work,” when it comes to presumed consent and/or an organ compensation program. Why don’t you offer solutions instead of more problems? If you can’t offer a solution, be quiet!
I like OPOs (organ procurement organizations). They do a wonderful job of trying to solve the organ shortage. They are almost unknown and invisible. They are some of the kindest most caring people I have ever met. Thanks OPOs.
I’m tired of seeing LifeSharers go unchallenged. The fact is LifeSharers has not saved a single member’s life. In order to be effective LifeSharers would have to enroll about 85 percent of the 300 million Americans. Currently they have 11,000 members. If they quadrupled their current growth rate, it would still take 125 years for them to reach a million. LifeSharers is a cruel fantasy.
I like blogging about organ donation. I’ve learned a great deal and hope that in some small way someone has been helped.
I’m tired of politicians who are afraid to rock the boat. If they had any guts and if they really cared about saving lives they would work to change the present organ donation system. Each year more people die and they make no attempt to change the system. This one makes me tired and angry!
I like organ donors, donor families and organ transplant patients. They are good and kind people. I am moved every time I hear their stories and am so very grateful to my donor family.
I’m tired of the news media and their emphasis on Britney Spears, Paula Abdul and bloody crashes. Why can’t they do more on organ donation, the problems of people without health care insurance and seniors who have to choose between taking medication and eating. I don’t care about Britney!
I like MSNBC’s Morning Joe (www.morningjoe.com). We’ll see if I still like Joe and Mika after the election when they’ll have to discuss other issues. Maybe organ donation will be one of them.
I’m tired of apathy. If you are not an organ donor why not? Give me one legitimate reason for not registering, just one reason.
I’m tired of ethicists. It seems all they ever do is to find more reasons we can’t change the organ donation system.
I like the Mayo Clinic. They saved my life and treat me with respect.
Please visit my Facebook site “Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You.” http://tinyurl.com/225cfh.
