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Willow Forest's avatar

Brave young lass. May your spirit always be accompanied on the next plane. God bless you for your strength and courage and standing up to the heavies of this world.

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vivienne reicher's avatar

We all feel sad when a young person dies, especially after having been unwell for so long. However, I think you all need to understand what you are up in arms about; a double lung transplant. The facts of double lung transplants are:

- they are extremely rare. Less than 100 such operations a year in Aus.

- it is an extremely painful operation with huge infection and rejection risks and usually only provides only short term relief.

- it is asking Drs to play God

- finding the lungs ripe for transplant is a horror story in itself. The preference is for same age, same gender lungs, for obvious compatibility reasons.

- the lungs can only be removed from someone declared “brain dead”, ie the person is still being ventilated, heart pumping, blood flowing.

- the donor has to be healthy.

- the donor has to have blood comparability.

- the chances of finding a healthy young compatible girl, who is declared “brain dead” only, and who has parents who agree to keep her ventilated whilst she is having her lungs removed, are very very narrow. They cannot use lungs form a dead person as they have died.

- one has to be in favour of removing vital organs from a “brain dead” child.

- this is a major ethical issue as “brain dead” is also very a controversial issue, and many believe that it is part of the killing and gross inhumane experimental side of medicine.

- would you allow your young daughter, perhaps almost dead from an accident, still breathing and with a beating heart, still on ventilation, to have her lungs removed to help another very sick and unwell girl? As a mother and a grand-mother, I find the concept to be just another abhorrent desecration of the sacred nature of life and death.

- be careful with what you expect from the so called marvels of body part transplants and modern surgical practises.

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