The founder of a family support group has criticised calls by leading anaesthetists for organ donors certified braindead to be anaesthetised against possible pain. The call was made in an editorial in the Royal College of Anaesthetists' journal, Anaesthesia. You stick the knife in and the pulse and blood pressure shoot up Philip Keep Consultant anaesthetist There are differing schools of thought as to whether a patient, certified brainstem dead but whose heart is still beating, can feel pain.
Nurses get really, really upset.
If you don't give anything at all, the patient will start moving and wriggling around and it's impossible to do the operation. If I knew that somebody was going to give me an anaesthetic, before my donor organs were removed, I would carry a donor card and I think a lot of other people who have got these doubts would carry a donor card as well. The confusion centred around the term braindead, Mr Keep said, and the fact that organs such as the lungs, liver and heart cannot be removed if a patient's heart has stopped. Last year guidance from the Intensive Care Society said the administration of an anaesthetic on organ donors was unnecessary. Rules on what constitutes brain death were formed by the royal medical colleges in 1976 and 1979.