NY considers creating 'organ-removal' ambulance

[flashl]

NEW YORK (AP) - Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may soon have a different task altogether: saving the dead. The city is considering creating a special ambulance whose crew would rush to collect the newly deceased and preserve the body so that the organs might be taken for transplant.

The "rapid-organ-recovery ambulance," still in the early planning stages, could raise a host of ethical questions and strike some families as ghoulish. But top medical officials in the Fire Department and Bellevue Hospital say it has the potential to save hundreds of lives.

Generally in the U.S., only people who die at hospitals are used as organ donors, because doctors are on hand with life-support machinery and other equipment to preserve the organs and remove them before they spoil. Surgeons have only a few critical hours before kidneys, livers and other body parts suffer damage that renders them unusable.

Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, the director of emergency medicine at Bellevue, said the ambulance project could spark an "amazing transformation" by substantially increasing the pool of donors. The system would be one of the first of its kind in the U.S., although similar ambulances have operated successfully in parts of Europe, he said.

breitbart

[jakem]

1. We've come for your liver!

[El Supremo]

5. Scary

Labcoat #1: Hello. Uh… can we have your liver?
Mr Brown: What?
Labcoat #1: Your liver. It's a large, uh… glandular organ in your abdomen.

Labcoat #1: You know, it's, uh… it's reddish-brown; it's sort of, uh…
Mr Brown: Yeah, y-yeah, I know what it is, but… I'm using it! I…

Labcoat #2: Go on, sir! Don't muck us up, now!

Labcoat #1: Hel-lo! What's this, then?
Mr Brown: A liver donor's card.
Labcoat #1: Need we say more?
Labcoat #2: No!
Mr Brown: Listen! I can't give it to you now. It says, 'in the event of death'. Uh. Oh! Ah. Ah. Eh.
Labcoat #1: No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.
Mr Brown: Agh.
Labcoat #2: Just lie there, sir. It won't take a minute.

Mr. Brown: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. And when business is slow and demand is high....

I mean, who's going to miss a homeless man or a few streetwalkers?

Maybe I read too many science fiction novels, but this idea makes me :scared:

[gullwing300]

4. Worse yet, what's the going street price for a kidney?

:scared:

[AnneD]

3. When I was a kid....

we called ambulances gut wagons. Gee little did we know. It has a creepy factor to it, esp when you consider the black market value of organs.

[FirstLight]

6. shades of Monty Python

"bring out your dead.."


...

"but I'm not dead yet!"


I'd be :rofl: if I wasn't so :scared:

[Vincardog]

7. What they need to do is add this to the back of every drivers license in the world

I agree as a result of my having to privilege of driving that in the event of my death
my organs may be used to help prolong the life and or health of living people. This agreement
is in force unless I decline below.

I decline do not use my organs _________________________________________________

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. there's a documentary about selling organs

in India.
They even have a middleman/person who gets a cut of the sale by bringing the 2 folks together to swap kidneys.

oh, god, did I say "cut"?....arggh

One of the interesting things was the operating procedure, patients remain dressed in their clothes, and get up and walk around by the end of the day...

very strange to watch
very "normal" now in India, to sell kidneys when in debt.

Had no idea we were "insourcing" the idea.

Kinda tells ya the decreased value of human life in Amerika that this can be thought of.
You wanna go to hospital for life saving treatment you can't afford , or ????

[DCKit]

9. Bad times to be homeless in NY. n/t

[mitchtv]

10. If you smoke Marijuana , think twice before donating

they may want to harvest your organs, but they won't give you one if you need it.that policy needs to go