Blood transfusions and Transplants

Starter Watch the video and make notes on the reasons for transplants

Blood Transfusions This is the use of blood products from other people to replace or boost blood in a patient. It is usually done as a result of blood loss, or as part of an operation. Blood given to a patient must match their own blood group, or their body rejects it, and they die.

Transplants This is the procedure of replacing an organ in someone’s body with the equilivant organ from someone else, usually someone who has died. It is done because their own organ does not work properly or at all. Recent advances have led to xenotransplantion, which is the use of organs from genetically modified animals. As with blood transfusion, the organ has to be accepted by the recipient’s system, so there has to be a match.

1967 – first heart transplant 1818 – first blood transfusion 1900 – blood group matching 1905 – first transplant takes place (corneal grafting) The history of transfusions and transplants 1967 – first heart transplant (Cape Town, SA) 1954 – first organ transplant

Picked up one of those donor cards the other day. Read the following conversation and pick out the arguments for and against organ donation Picked up one of those donor cards the other day. Really? Gives me the creeps to think I’ll get cut up and distributed when I’m dead. No, it’s important. I don’t need my body if I’m dead, do I? Bits of me might actually save someone’s life. It’s comforting to think that my last acts can be so valuable and important. You could say that I’m still alive in a way. Yes, but it’s not respectful to cut someone up after they have died. If my child died , I’d want to hold them and remember what they were, not decide if the doctors can whisk them away and chop them up. It must be very difficult to make that decision, that’s why I’ve decided for myself.

Now they are genetically changing animals so that they can grow organs which can be transplanted into people. I don’t like that either – it isn’t natural There are so many people who need such help, anything they do like that must be good. At the end of the day, I think transplantation oversteps the mark of where God is. If that means someone has to be blind, that’s God’s call. If someone will die, again it’s God’s call Got to disagree with you there. If there’s a God, he’s given us this knowledge. We should use it

Read the handout and make notes about the attitude of the three religions