Cheah Shi Shiun, 15

School: Bendemeer Secondary School

Topic: Do donor families find hope in organ donation?

Award: Merit, Junior Category, 2022

Organ donation is a peculiar process. Replacing parts of us with others to continue the story we are still writing, improving the lives of others by giving fresh new starts bolstered by the drugs that help slide it into its place. Science has come a long way in helping us in the most unexpected ways, and it can give hope to the lost and stranded by the death of their loved ones. This hope, however, is a fickle thing and not simply seized by the slippery hands of the unwilling and sometimes impossible in some cases.

When the donor dies, the donor may have already decided to donate his organs and tissues before his untimely passing or has not been able to express his wishes and has left this uneasy decision to his immediate family. Families usually prefer that the donor decide their passing to not go through the pains of doubting their opinions on what their loved ones would want. No one is comfortable with the thought of giving away a part of themselves to a stranger. It’s as if you’re giving away something very precious to you to someone else to whom you have no connection.

Donor families left with this decision also have to contend with the reality that their loved one is dead. Death comes as a sudden shock to many, reaping out denial in the minds of the families. When faced with the request for organ donation, it startles the families with the fact that their loved one is truly dead and is gone forever except in memories. It is even worse when a person is declared brain-dead, but the patient seems to be alive and well, living on a machine that helps to keep them alive. Much research has been done to find out the leading causes of family refusal of organ donation, and the most common reason was families’ denial of the term ‘brain-dead’ truly meaning death. This ignorance of the term ‘brain-dead’ reinforces the mind’s denial that their loved one is stated as dead, making it inherently difficult to change the mind.

Families are also concerned that the recipient of the organs may be undeserving of them and that they have ‘brought it upon themselves’ such as the giants with struggling hearts with a sluggish demeanor or the drinkers with ruined livers drowning their sorrows. Luckily, most also think about the gifting of life and not death.

Knowing that parts of your loved ones are still in this world, extending that spark of life is also comforting. They stay in this world in the vessel of another, working in tandem with others to give the same quality of life they have done before. Heart beating, lungs breathing, liver cleansing, it all offers hope to the family, knowing that the death was not as meaningless as numbers on a chart. It may help when they are experiencing one of the most bewildering days of their life.

However, there is sometimes no door for families to find hope in organ donation. Some loved ones suddenly die from unsuspecting chronic diseases; thus, the havoc wreaked on the organs and tissues of the body is too severe for them to be suitable for organ donation. There is no way around this to be able to find hope. Given the request for organ donation may feel too sudden as well, increasing the pain of donor families as it may make them perceive that there is no sympathy or pity from the outside world and is declared a new number in the death toll.

Religions and culture also play a significant part in the refusal of organ donation, like in Chinese communities. Most Chinese possess Confucian beliefs of dying intact with respect to their ancestors, thus a low organ donation rate. To put it simply, most Chinese are concerned with body disfigurement from organ donation and wish to be buried with all their body parts untouched. Much research supports this fact, showing that many Chinese acknowledged organ donation as a noble cause but declined to donate their organs. These beliefs, however, are dwindling over the years in the Chinese community.

So yes, hope can be found in organ donation, but it is also not always there. There must be a balance maintained in this world, so science has its limits to healing and helping us.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2022 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health). To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg