The family of a brain-dead woman gave consent for her organs to be donated, marking the third case in which a family has made the decision for a patient who did not express an intention to donate in writing, a transplant coordination group said Sunday.
The patient in her 50s was declared brain dead at 5:41 a.m. Sunday at a hospital in the Tokai region centered on Nagoya due to damage to her brain's blood vessels, said the Japan Organ Transplant Network, the only entity certified as an intermediary for organ transplants in Japan.
Members of her family said they had never talked about organ donation with the patient but hoped that donating her organs would help someone else.