The British Medical Associationis initiating a new debate on a controversial practice called, “elective ventilation”

In the practice, patients are solely kept alive to harvest organs for transplants. BMA is aiming to stop up to 1,000 people a year deaths due to chronic shortage of organs in the country. A new BMA report said that ‘hearts could be taken from newborn babies for the first time and body parts could be used from high -risk donors’.

The practice involves patients diagnosed as dead including those who have suffered a massive stroke. The report said, “elective ventilation is different in that it involves starting ventilation, once it is recognized that the patient is close to death, with the specific intention of facilitating organ donation”.

The practice resulted in an increase of 50 per cent in the number of organs available it was carried out by the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital from 1988. However, the practice was declared unlawful by UK’s Department of Health in 1994.

Experts say that such practices are at the edge of acceptability and involved ethical considerations. Other countries that have similar practices are the US and Spain.