Donor Information
By law, in any death that comes under the jurisdiction of the Medical Examiner, the Medical Examiner must give consent for any organ, tissue, or cornea procurement agency to proceed with donation. The law is written this way, so that organ donation does not interfere with any Medical Examiner duties, such as the gathering of evidence in homicide deaths, and determining the cause of death. In practice, the Spokane Medical Examiner's Office is very supportive of organ, tissue, and cornea donation, and strives to allow for donation in almost all deaths. The Medical Examiner's Office cooperates with and serves the organ donor agencies. Spokane County receives no compensation for any organ, tissue, or cornea donation. Human organs are in short supply, and there are long lists of patients awaiting transplant.
Aside from the considerations above, it is not the job of the Medical Examiner to determine if a deceased individual is an acceptable donor. For example, the organ procurement agencies independently screen potential donors for infectious desease. Those agencies may decide based on their testing and interviews with living family members that a decedent should not be a donor, because of the risk of infecting an organ/tissue recipient; also certain body sizes and ages are excluded.
Organ donation and bone/tissue donation occurs in hospital operating rooms. Cornea donations can take place in the Medical Examiner autopsy facility.
Resource Links
- Organ Donor Information
- Body Donation to Science