Rapport de stage

...

Next comes the point related to the lack of sophisticated infrastructures and tools in the medical field. Many are the countries especially the undeveloped or even the developing ones that suffer from this issue. Technological advances are just getting integrated in their medical field and infrastructures are not really well developed which ruins the process of getting organs or even transplanting them. Moreover, in countries in which level of illiteracy are high, people lack the awareness about the importance of organ donations and how it can save their relatives or their own lives and give them a second chance to breath. Such issues worsen the current situation and may stop the smooth process of saving lives. One of the best examples to cite here is Saudi Arabia or Pakistan which is known for being one of the countries that suffer the most from poor medical infrastructures. In the Middle East, numerous are the commonalities between countries when it comes to organ transplantation. “They include inadequate preventive medicine, uneven health infrastructure, and poor awareness in the medical community” (Shaheen). These are some aspects explain the critical situations these people live in. According to another source, in the Arab World, current socioeconomic conditions and existing disparities in the health status complicates the organ transplantation practices even more (Faraj, Fakih,Mukherji, and Khalife 3). Indeed, in most Arab countries, the declined medical infrastructures come to get added to poverty, high levels of illiteracy making these countries conditions even worse.

Hispanic countries are another example of countries suffering from lack of medical development and infrastructures. For this reason, the rate of donations is significantly low compared to other developed countries. In fact, within twelve countries in Latin America, 55,000 is the number of people waiting for solid organ transplants. Even if the rate of donations in these countries has augmented by 100% during the last decade, it is still inferior to the European one (15pmm/y) or the American on (20pmp/y) ("Organ Donation in Latin America"). For all the reasons previously cited, this issue should get a global attention in order to answer to this organs’ shortage the right way and as soon as possible.

In the third position, there is point linked to the presence of some cultural beliefs and how they can negatively affect the organ donations processes. Difference in races may sometimes represent obstacles to donations. White people may refuse and be reluctant to get a black person’s transplant or vice versa. The main argument to defend this position is the possible incompatibility between the two parties because their skins’ colors are different. Same race origins would be a mandatory condition for some donors which for sure will affect the rate of donations.

In some countries and because of the lack of awareness and accessibility to medical services, people have a tendency to distrust doctors and doubt in their abilities. They are used to get by the family mystical healers or have recourse to herbal medicine and think that what doctors do is highly sophisticated for their lifestyle. They tend to link herbal medicine with simplicity, availability, safety and absence of complications. According to Dr. Spencer Martin, talking about advocates of herbal medicine, “herbal supplements are ‘natural’ so they must be safe for them” (“A Focus on Herbal Remedies”). According to a survey conveyed in the US, “the race of the person who gets an organ is important in my decision to donate my own organs”. Here are the percentages of people from different races that answered positively to this statement: 10% of Whites, 17% of Hispanics against 14% African Americans (Yuen, Burton, and Elmore 17). Before starting the donation process, most of donors are willing first to know the identity or more specifically the race of their organs’ receivers. It is seen as an important element that highly affects their decisions to donate.

“Potential emotional affective attitude barriers such as the "ick" factor, the desire to retain bodily integrity after death, and medical mistrust” are all elements that may affect the decisions of becoming a donor according to US National Library of Medicine (O'Carroll, Foster, McGeechan, Sandford and Ferguson). The same source defined the “ick factor” as being the fear of getting another person organ inside of one’s body.

In most of Asian countries, there is an obvious difficulty to get kidneys for transplantations it is more difficult to obtain cadaver kidneys for renal transplantation as a result of the existence of some socio-cultural beliefs and customs (KT). Several are the issues that are noticed and they have different bases. As the author said, “fear of death, the belief that removal of organ violates sanctity of decreased, concern about being cut up after death, desire to be buried whole, dislike of idea of kidneys inside another person, wrong concept of brain death, and the idea of donation being against religious conviction”, these are all misconceptions related to organs’ donations (KT). These are just few examples that apply to one continent with few cultural differences. If we consider the four remaining continents with all their differences taken into account, the examples’ list would be much longer. Another example comes from the south of another continent, the American one. Latin American people are famous for being family-oriented. The rate of family refusing their relatives to donate their organs reached 28% in Uruguay and 70% in Peru ("Organ Donation in Latin America"). These figures are quite surprising knowing the high level of shortage these countries on a daily basis compared to others. Even when the talk is only about developed European countries, there are some disparities with regard to the acceptance of the donations concept. If we compare two of them, the number of intensive care unit beds in Spain for people before becoming donors is much larger than in the UK. Second, “organ donation is undoubtedly a normal part of end-of-life care in Spain, is accepted as such, and has the confidence and support of the general public” (Simpson).

To conclude, “blood and organ donations are described in terms of giving the “gift of life” to ameliorate societal discomfort with the “commodification of life”” (Layne qtd Rubin). Each day all around the world, people die waiting for an organ transplant. Either being on a waiting list for months, laying down on a hospital bed or living with artificial respiratory or hearth system, it does not make a difference for them. They just want to have a second chance to live, make their life better or to keep breathing. When it