Health care professional Ben is employed in the emergency and trauma unit.
Patient Freddie arrives. He is a trauma patient. Freddie is well-known in the city. He has a criminal record for human trafficking, running a prostitution ring and selling contaminated street drugs. Police say he was shot by a rival gang leader. Ben without anyone seeing, signs and dates the organ donor card he found in Joe’s wallet.
Freddie is transferred to the ICU to be on life support system until family can be reached and asked about organ donation.
The transplant coordinator a registered nurse tries to find family to consent to organ donation. No one can be found. The coordinator says he signed his donation card and his organs can be removed. The transplantation team remove several organs and some tissue. Eight lives are saved as a result.
His family is found by the police one week later. They come to take his body from the hospital morgue. They meet the transplant coordinator and transplant surgeon. They explain they removed his organs because he had signed the donor card. They explained that they tried to find family to get consent and when all their efforts failed, they removed the organs.
His family say “We understand why you went ahead without our consent. You did the tight thing. Some good came out of his life which gives us some peace. He harmed many people in life but helped many people when he died.”.
The transplant coordinator gave the family these statistics from Canadian Institute of health information (CIHI) to show the family how important his donations were for individuals and the health care system.
Which theoretical approach do you prefer and why? Do you agree or disagree with Ben’s action of signing the card?
