Inadequate Organs

Some foreigner has warned that assuming consent for organ donation, as favoured by the chief medical officer here on the mainland and endorsed by Britain's most urgent brain transplant customer, would not save lives. Apparently there are still some health services which are so outdated as to consider saving lives a priority. Presumed consent, according to a professorial quisling from King's College school of medicine, cannot be considered informed consent and thus would be "of no value whatsoever", except possibly to New New Labour ministers who believe that the organs of poor people should be harvested by a privatised health service for the benefit of those who can afford to pay.

Dr Rafael Matesanz is the director of the National Transplant Organisation in Spain, which has the highest transplant success rate in the world. He actually has the nerve to imply that the New Labour strategy of simply changing the law until the universe complies with Gordon's wishes will not help: "There is no country in the world where there has been sustained improvement after changing the law," he said. The success of Matesanz' own organisation is, he says, "not a result of legal change, but of a dedicated and comprehensive transplant programme"; which seems to settle the matter. The idea of a dedicated and comprehensive programme that is British and concerned with public health has all the plausibility of a triangle with two right angles or a Government minister with two balls to rub together.