organ donation,years ago.

asparagus1968

strange story,but here goes...
my uncle died,aged 16 years,in 1978

his mum (my grandmother) was heavily sedated and everything from that day to a month or so later is a bit of a blur for her. she is now 86 years old and has got it into her head his organs may have been taken without her consent, from what someone who was working at the hospital has told her.

is there any way this would have happened back then? and any way to find out/prove/disprove what happened?

thanks for your time

amyloofoo

This must be really distressing for you to hear and for her to think about. It's unlikely, but has happened. Do you know which hospital was involved? Some have (small) histories of unfortunate cases like this, whilst others really don't so it's very very unlikely. :grouphug:

meritaten

If her husband was still alive he may have given permission without her knowledge or consent. or her son may have had an organ donor card - many people carried them back in the late seventies. I hate to say this - but hospital staff often treated people of 16 as if they were 'of age' - they still do but the age cut off seems to be at around 12 to 14 these days.

Janey7

What a sad story. You say she's got the idea into her head, suggesting someone's told her this quite recently? Has your grandmother told you what they told her in as exact words as possible?

I suggest finding the person who told your grandmother this and speak to them. I don't want to assume that she is imagining things just because she is an older lady, but it is just possible that she may have misinterpreted a remark made by this person.

You could also try looking up the hospital where it occurred in the press, see if any scandals like that have happened there in the past? But obviously this is not going to definitely prove anything either way.

System

My daughter died in 1980 and her organs were 'harvested'. I retrieved them in 2001.

Did your uncle have a post mortem after he died or did your Grandmother have to sign for a hospital post mortem for her son?

I applied and suceeded in getting my daughters medical records 21 years after she had died. However, it was not easy to get to the truth as one doctor told me they had been stored in the same place for 21 years, another doctor at another occasion dropped it out that they had seen my daughters organs in Bristol. Reading her medical records was distressing as it noted when they put her under a medical induced coma because of her distress.

I am mortified in hearing she heard this whilst she was in hospital. It was distressing enough for me to handle in my 40s and i'm not sure i could have handled it in my 80s.

KiKi

As per another poster, you need to find out what was actually said. Was it a conversation generally, where a nurse said "oh, years ago organs were just taken without permission!" with no reference or reason for it to be relevant to her son? Or did someone at the hospital relay a story that they heard from someone who heard something from someone about something from a doctor who....??

You need to know this before you jump into any research or trying to find out, otherwise you may be doing it for nothing. Can you identify the person who spoke to her?

findingmyownway

I find it hard to believe that anyone knowing (and remembering) the specifics of a case over 30 years ago would:

a) now have found themselves in a position caring for your grandmother
b) have put 2-and-2 together that she is the mum of dead 16yr old and
c) think it was a good idea to tell her the details

Perhaps a more general conversation about organ donation was going on around her and she got the wrong end of the stick?

Also... even if this was the case I'm not sure what knowing for sure would bring? What if those organs are now inside people, saving their lives? I don't think anyone who received an organ 30 years ago deserves to find out that it was given without the correct permissions.

silvercar

findingmyownway wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that anyone knowing (and remembering) the specifics of a case over 30 years ago would:

a) now have found themselves in a position caring for your grandmother
b) have put 2-and-2 together that she is the mum of dead 16yr old and
c) think it was a good idea to tell her the details

Perhaps a more general conversation about organ donation was going on around her and she got the wrong end of the stick?

Also... even if this was the case I'm not sure what knowing for sure would bring? What if those organs are now inside people, saving their lives? I don't think anyone who received an organ 30 years ago deserves to find out that it was given without the correct permissions.

I agree. Even if it were true, she is not going to get the organs back now. Better for you to speak to someone and find out that it is unlikely to have been an accurate representation of the conversation and reassure your grandmother that it isn't true.

jackyann

I was a nurse then; here's what you need to know:
Did he die in an accident or some other event involving immediate "brain death"? Those are the kind of circumstances in which organs are taken for donation. Consent of the person themselves (in advance, relatively unlikely at 16) is needed or the next of kin (as poster above says, possibly his father). Otherwise they would not have been taken for donation.
Did he die of a disease? In that case his organs would not have been used for donation. It is possible that a small amount of tissue or (very rarely a whole organ) was kept for research. This is when consent is theoretically needed, but VERY OCCASIONALLY was not sought. That never happened anywhere I worked, and Judi's distressing experience is very rare.

I would try, up to a point to find out what was said, then as other posters have said, I would lay it to rest as quickly as possible.
I would say, that if you feel you have to contact the hospital, they will be very sympathetic. Most will tell you unequivocally that this never happened. The few where it did are used to dealing with distressed relatives.
Good luck

katsclaws

Bit confused by some of the comments. The OP says the grandmother was told by someone working in the hospital not that her grandmother is a patient. Some very helpful advice though.

clairec79

While sometimes organs were taken and kept for research as far as I know none were taken for transplantation (otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been on the waiting list from 1982 to 1988 if they could have just taken a random persons)