The nation breathed an almost audible collective sigh of relief this week, thankful that a successful precedent has now been set for organ transplants. Apart from the media hullabaloo and a short-lived controversy over the diagnosis a couple of days before the verdict of legal brain-death was pronounced, the series of transplant operations of multiple organs from a brain-dead donor went as smoothly as could be expected.
On Sunday, hours after the donor-patient at Kochi Red Cross Hospital was pronounced legally dead, her heart started beating again in the body of a 47-year-old cardiac patient in Osaka. On the same day, her liver went to another recipient in Nagano. By Monday morning, kidney transplants were completed in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, and Omura, Nagasaki Prefecture, while the corneas found their way to two patients in separate locations in Kochi Prefecture. All the transplants were pronounced successful. No matter what the ultimate outcome of the operations, all the recipients have a better chance of a healthier life, thanks to the generosity of a single person.
Because of the extreme and questionable secrecy surrounding the first heart transplant attempt in Japan 31 years ago, the nation has been wary of brain-death-related organ transplants. A recent survey by the Prime Minister's Office found that only 32 percent of the public would donate their organs for transplants if they were pronounced brain-dead; a full 38 percent said they would not.