No cost to donor families

In Barbara Bieberbach’s “end of life” file is a 20-year-old article about organ donation.

The story, which she’s saving “for the family to use,” quotes the then-president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations on donation cost. “The donor family should never be charged for any services once the official declaration of death has occurred,” he said.

Lately, though, Barbara has heard of families losing a loved one, being pressured to donate the deceased’s organs, then being charged for organ removal.

Has something changed?

“What rules are followed vis-à-vis money?” she asked. “Who pays for keeping a patient ‘alive’ while a donee is located?”

The Texas Organ Sharing Alliance can answer these questions and more. Based in San Antonio, the alliance is the federally designated, nonprofit organ procurement organization serving South and Central Texas.

The alliance website, www.txorgansharing.org, addressed Barbara’s first question: “It does not cost anything to be a donor. No costs directly related to organ and tissue donation are passed on to the family.”

The short answer to her second question is that a procurement organization, such as the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance, pays all donation-associated costs.

The alliance’s Mela Perez explained that no patient is ever kept “alive” while a donor is sought. The only patients who become donors are those who’ve been declared brain dead, which is different from being in coma or vegetative state.

There is no recovery from brain death, she said.

The donation process cannot begin without the family’s consent. Contact Perez at 210-614-7030 or mperez@txorgansharing.org.