Det döende barnet som möjlig organdonator

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to limelight a child ́s position regarding organ donation and thus complicated legal situation that arise. The problem with establishing a child ́s right to his or hers self-determination and participation are that these legal concerns are mainly regulated through doctrine and government decision, as there are inadequate legal acts to regulate the area. Because there is a lack of doctrine to find legal support from, the child ́s right to self-determination remains an unregulated area of the law.  The question that arises are what legal rights to self-determination and participation a child has in the donation process compared to the parents. Children should, parallel to their maturity and age, be given more rights to decide. This follows by the fact that the child ́s age and development should be considered in the context of the caring system according to 4 kap. 3 § patientlagen. The problem is often that the question surrounding organ donation mainly arises when the child itself is unable to partake in the discussion due to unconsciousness, which in turn means that this falls on the parents. The parents do have the right in 6 kap. 11 § föräldrabalken which also stipulates that the child should be ensured co-determination. However, there are no guarantees for the caregivers not to act out their own interest.  This means that trade-offs need to be made in the situations where the child has expressed a willingness to donate his or hers organs, the parents dispute it. The question is whose interest should weigh the heaviest? The child ́s will donate organs should be given particular weigh if it is registered in a donation register. However, the parents still have a right to oppose the organ donation. The fact that a registration in the donation register must constitute a special weigh may instead be considered to lead to the child being given a right of co- determination, as the registration rather has an effect as a starting point for the health care staff to address the issue of donation.  After a decision has been made not to initiate or continue the life-sustaining care, the so-called organ-preserving treatment is started. This runs in parallel with palliative care while the child ́s stand on donation is investigated. In practice, there is rather talk that the previous care that was given for the sake of the child is now instead given in order to enable donation. The Government ́s bill on organ-preserving treatment included medical measures that could not be postpone until after death, cause no more than minor pain or injury, which must never take precedence over treatment that benefits the patient, and which may last for a maximum of 72 hours. This bill has now been withdrawn as the government will review the question of whether intubation should be considered permissible within the framework of organ-preserving treatment. However, the organ-preserving treatment is already given in practice as it is a prerequisite for enabling donation. Since there are currently 11 children on the waiting list for a new organ, children also need to be able to donate their organs after their death. This is due to the fact that some organs must be sized. Therefore, the Government does not consider that this is a contrary to the principle of the best interests of the child, despite the fact that it is medical interventions that are taken on a dying child in order to keep organs for another child.