Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Seven pounds - spoiler

If you intend to watch the movie, 'Seven Pounds', please do not read any further unless you want to know the plot.
You have been warned....

It's a story about a man who causes a car crash by reading his mobile phone's display while driving, and causes the death of 7 people, including his fiance.

As a result, he sets out to change the lives of 7 people by donating his organs to them. While alive, he donated a lung lobe to his brother, a part of his liver to a stranger called Holly, a bone marrow to a young kid and a kidney to another stranger.

He also donated his house and a large amount of money to a domestic-abused mom and her 2 children.

So, that's 5 people he had helped.

He needed 2 more people to help. And decides to donate his heart to a woman with congenital heart failure and his eyes to a blind man. And he does it by committing suicide in a way that preserves the heart - by allowing to be killed by a poisonous jelly-fish in a bathtub fulled with ice. He leaves a note to warn people about the poisonous jelly-fish and rings 911 to inform them about his impending suicide.

What bothered me about the story plot was the issue that the protagonist in the story made sure that the people he was about to donate his organs to were worthy of his organs. When alive, yes, you can make a decision that I want to donate my kidney/lung/liver to Mr X or Miss Y. And if you find out that Mr X is a paedophile, you can choose not to proceed with the donation. That is your choice. You have the autonomy to do so. However, for living donation, there is a lot of strict regulations to meet and a thorough process of assessment and discussion before it can go ahead.

However, once dead, I do not think that it is right that one has a choice to dictate who he wants his organs to go to. It should be a matter of need and priority. Not discriminated by how naughty or nice you have been this year.

As it is, we are in desperate need for organ donors and this movie does not help the cause if people were to come away from the movie thinking that they can choose who receives their organs.

In the UK, organs and tissue cannot be accepted unless they are freely donated. No conditions can be attached in terms of potential recipients. The only restriction allowed is which organs or tissue are to be donated.

I hope this has helped to clear up any misunderstanding that people might have on organ donation. If you have any further queries, please visit the NHS Organ Donor website or the Malaysian Society of Transplantation website.

Consider being an organ donor today....

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