Medi shocker: Brain dead girl’s organs removed whilst still alive

Ten vital questions that await answer: To what extent can doctors play God?

FIRST THE SAD FACTS: Twenty- fouryear-old Jeewanthi Alwis, the mother of a child, attended a wedding of a family friend with her husband last Saturday night, the 27th of January. On their way home they met with an accident. Her husband died on the spot. With the benefit of hindsight, it can be safely presumed that he was the lucky half to have succumbed to his injuries instantaneously to have made a quick exit. His wife Jeewanthi was not that fortunate. Though she survived the initial crash, horrors worse than an instant death awaited her.

She was rushed to the country’s main hospital, Colombo’s National hospital. There the doctors on duty that night determined that she had suffered serious injuries to her head. Instead of treating her there with all the facilities available there, they decided instead to transfer her to the Homagama base hospital some 20 km away. THE FIRST QUESTION: Why? Why was it necessary to transport her 20 kilometres away to a base hospital when she was already lodged in the nation’s main general hospital? In normal circumstances, patients in serious condition are transferred to the main hospital for better treatment. In Jeevanthi’s case it was the other way round. In her case, she was removed from the main hospital to a lower B grade hospital. Why?

At the Homagama base hospital, a team of doctors tried their best, it is said, to revive her from her coma but apparently had failed. The medical team emerged from the Intensive Care Unit to gravely inform the grief striken distraught family the bad news. To announce to them that, in their opinion, she was brain dead; and nothing could be done to bring her back to life. THE SECOND QUESTION: Was this failure due to the decision of the doctors at the five star hospital of Lanka, the main general hospital of the country, the National Hospital, to pass her off to a base hospital in Homagama, nearly an hour’s drive away? Did lack of medical attention during that one vital hour, turn her comatose condition to one that had passed beyond the pale of resurrection? THE THIRD QUESTION: Did those doctors request the family’s consent to switch the life supporting machine off as would have been the case in normal circumstances? No. Instead they wanted to keep it on for another six hours or more and keep Jeewanthi alive. For what possible reason? Not to make a last ditch attempt to revive her from her moribund state, but purely to perform a five-hour operation on her to remove her organs whilst still alive.

THE FOURTH QUESTION: Only a thin line divide the sublime from the ridiculous. The genius from the lunatic. The brain dead from the comatose. The human brain is like the Amazonian jungle. A vast tract of unexplored terrain still to be discovered. Still to be unearthed. No scientist alive will dare to presume he holds the key to unlock its secrets or to reveal its infinite range? Does the soul sleep in the brain or does it slumber wide awake in the heart? These are subjects which the sages of old have dwelt upon at length and on which even the Buddha remained silent when once asked: Where does the soul find home in the human anatomy? No matter the concept of soul and no soul, no matter whether it’s immortal and subject to change, where does it truly lie, in the brain or in the heart?

THE FIFTH QUESTION: In the light of the above, can a Homagama Base hospital surgeon then come forth to declare that though the heart still beats, all life has fled from the body of one he arbitrarily declares to be brain dead?

Could any surgeon truly have vouched that though the brain be dead, that whilst the heart still beats, whether on a life supporting machine or no, that all sensations of pain and suffering had ceased to exist in Jeevanthi’s mortal corpus?

And that such a seeming lifeless, helpless body, though to the world she appeared dead as dead can be, though in the blinkered eyes of doctors she was condemned as dead beyond hope, was fair game to be artificially kept alive for the singular purpose of extracting from Jeewanthi inert body, vital organs to sate the professional macabre cravings of those with a bizarre shopping list for body parts?

THE SIXTH QUESTION: Was Jeewanthi condemned brain dead and, though medically considered as dead as a door nail, still kept alive for the sole purpose of removing her organs, one by one, even as vehicles are condemned as not being road worthy and cannibalised thereafter for its spare parts to be sold at some Panchikawatte motor shop?

THE SEVENTH QUESTION: Jeevanthi’s kidneys, her liver, her corneas of the eyes and the bones of her legs were removed in the five hour operation whilst she was still technically alive. That itself is a shocker that must chill the rest to the bones.

But who gave this team of doctors’ permission to do it? It is reported that they obtained the consent of Jeevanthi’s father. But does that suffice? Is it not the case that no organ, not even the cornea of the eye can be removed from a dead person if prior consent of the deceased had not been expressed in writing before his or her death? Not even the father, nor the mother, no son or daughter can give their consent to even medical ghouls to thieve the assets of their beloved dead in the absence of written consent of a person before his or her death?

THE EIGHTH QUESTION: Who decides whether a person is brain dead or only in a coma? The doctor, is it not? And when he makes his decision, for whatever reason, whether motivated by money or selfless ambition to conduct experiments in the name of advancing the boundaries of medical knowledge even as the Nazi sadistic doctor Dr. Josef Mengele did in the name of science when he conducted experiments on pregnant Jewish women in Auschwitz’s concentration camps before sending them back to the gas chamber, who is there to say no, you are wrong, you are mistaken? At that moment in time, a man with a streetscape casually strung around his neck plays God; and the poor believe in his divinity? Would Jeevanthi’s parents, had they been rich and powerful, agreed to their supposedly brain dead daughter being subjected to a five hour operation whilst her heart still throbbed, albeit on a life support machine, or would they have instead said no to give their consents to the doctors request and opted instead to give her a decent exit. Did Jeevanthi’s father have such a choice? Or was the distraught father, subjected to undue influence to give his consent to allow the doctors to do as they pleased? THE NINTH QUESTION: When a doctor comes out of the ICU and tells the patient’s family their child is brain dead, what possible measures exist for a father without means to consult a second opinion in a government hospital? And if the doctors further say to the father in that grief stricken hour, now that your child is beyond return, why not remove her organs as well and fix it on another, for at least it will be a meritorious act that will ensure your child a better rebirth? To recap Jeevanthi’s brief life and tragedy: She was only 24. A young mother with a single child. She had met with an accident after attending a wedding of a family friend. Her husband had died on the spot. She had survived the accident, though with serious injuries to her brain. She had been taken to the country’s main hospital where the doctors thereat had opined that she had suffered serious injuries to her head. But instead of treating her then and there, they had opted to send her to a base hospital 20 km away, an hour’s drive away. The doctors had informed her father she was brain dead. And asked his permission not to simply switch the life support machine off but to keep it on for six hours and more to perform an operation on her to remove her organs whilst still alive.

THE TENTH QUESTION: Haven’t you heard or read of near death experiences, related by people who had been once condemned as brain dead? Or to put it in another way: Doesn’t anyone believe in miracles anymore?