HOTA

Currently, there have been proposed amendments to the Human Organ Transplant Act to give incentives to donors after their organ transplant to compensate for the expenses or loss of earnings which may be incurred by a person reasonably or directly due to his donation. The rationale of this proposal is to raise the organ transplant rate to improve the overall living condition of the people by providing them a healthy and strong life. However, there are many flaws to this proposal as people would use the donation as an excuse to gain “payments” from the government.

First of all, if the donor were to be in a career whereby his health is crucial for good performance, such as laborers, they could abuse this new act. For example, if the worker was to decide to have a short break from his work and yet get the same or even more pay, he could decide to donate one of his functioning kidneys. Then, he would be considered as partially disabled and would not be able to run his work well. Loss in payment due to this would be counted as “loss of earnings incurred by a person directly due to his donation” and the government would have to pay the donor to compensate for the loss in his income. Therefore, the worker would be able to work less for maybe a few years and yet get the same salary. He might even be able to donate another organ after he is considered partially disabled to gain that “privilege” again. Therefore, this act is inadequate as workers might make use of this law to slack off in their jobs and get money from the government as “reward” for their “kind” acts.

Also, one flaw in the act is that it did not specify about donations from already disabled donors. As some donors might already have medical disabilities which do not affect the organ which they would like to donate, they would have more loss caused by the donation compared to normal healthy people as their body would be further weakened and thus, resulting in a poor living condition. Therefore, the government should provide more incentives to these donors as their loss due to the donation is not just financial and physical, but also mental and social. This extra incentive can also serve as recognition of their brave act even when they are already medically deprived. Hence, I believe that there should be more incentives given to already disabled organ donors to compensate for their greater loss and also medical benefits should be provided for his current partially disabled organ as well as the previously disabled organ to reward them for their courage.

Therefore, to better the Human Organ Transplant Act, there should be it should be limited to only one organ from one donor to reduce the occurrences whereby there incentives are abused. However, an exception should be given to organs which are needed from relatives during emergencies so that there would be a supply of organs in a short notice. The second amendment to this proposal is to provide donors who were previously medically disabled with more incentives and insurance to compensate for their greater loss due to the transplant as well as to take care of their welfare so that their lives would not be that greatly affected by two medical conditions.