breakingnews
11.06.2008, 16:00
It’s the stuff of nightmares. A man in France woke up just as surgeons were about to cut him open to remove his organs. His heart hadn’t worked for at least an hour and a half when the doctors began the operation, reports the French newspaper, Le Monde.
15.04.2008, 05:37
Doctors estimate that around 800 organ transplant operations are carried out in Russia each year. But that is less than a fifth of the number needed. The life-saving treatment is being hampered by a shortage of organs. Rumours of a black market in kidneys
28.01.2008, 01:11
One of Russia's most famous surgeons has died in Moscow. Valery Shumakov was the first to successfully perform transplant operations in the USSR.
16.07.2007, 22:04
Up to 2,000 sick children in Russia could be given the chance to live longer and more fulfilling lives thanks to new rules on organ transplants. At the moment, it's against the law to use children’s organs in transplant operations, but the Health Ministry
12.03.2007, 19:11
20 years ago surgeons performed the first heart transplantation operation in the USSR. Since then, over 100 transplants have been made, with the majority of operations in Moscow.
24.07.2009, 09:20
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More than two million people in Russia are thought to be homeless and living without state benefits and healthcare. Their chances of returning to a normal life are slim, but some people are trying to make a difference.
28.10.2009, 09:36
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Fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS is the focus for fifty eastern European and central Asian countries who have gathered in Moscow today. In Russia, discrimination also adds to the burden of HIV-positive people.
12.08.2010, 20:46
2 comments
An overwhelming majority of Russians support the idea of a ban on smoking and drinking beer in public places, a public opinion poll by the Levada Analytical Center reveals.
04.07.2009, 11:22
1 comment
Police in Russia's Far East have found a six-year-old who lived with the family's pets in a kennel. Doctors say she is healthy, but lags behind in her psychological development.
14.01.2010, 08:22
Sergey Istomin is a man who has turned a disaster in his life into a victory. Though he is the European Weightlifting Champion among disabled athletes, he still cannot win every day battles with curbs and ramps.
Published: 13 May, 2009, 09:39
Russian law says that a person can become a donor only if their brain death is ascertained according to accepted medical criteria, but it also says those criteria cannot be applied to minors.
It is a tragedy, to see a child in suffering, or at worst passing away, when techniques exist to save them. We would all love, for them to get better. However, we need be careful here. In the west, there has been a rush to extract organs, either for profit, or as a result of playing God, in deciding that the recipients life is of more worth than the donor. We don't want to go down this path in Russia. In terms of profit, we all know, we have a huge issue with corruption. Without stern controls, this would turn us into body snatchers. We therefore need absolute, strongly policed protocols, driving all that can be done, to save the potential donors life, without any regard to a recipents condition. The standard needs to be absolute, with strong criminal sanction, for breach. Only when the donor child dies naturally, should the recipient, based on parental consent be allowed to receive the donors organ. This does have an affect on the availability of organs, there is no doubt about it, however, we need be absolute here. Being absolute, will nulify any notion of becoming God and also stamp on corruptive forces. It will leave a problem, but this problem should be seen as a force, driving innovation to create transplant alternatives. This is an opportunity for Russia. Just going down the slippery slope to playing God is not the answer, for any dying child, We are not God, so leave it at that. But we are people, who can overcome problems in the correct way, without always taking the easy way out through liberal relativism.