Heart transplantation ‘not miracle therapy’

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 34

Heart transplantation ‘not miracle therapy’

PA Dunedin Heart transplantation is not the miracle therapy the public seem to think it is, says Professor Alastair Campbell, a theologian at the Otago Medical School. “It is a pity heart transplants have been put in a special category,” he said. Professor Campbell is at the Medical School as a special visiting professor for the next year in biomedical ethics. He is already working with doctors and nurses in Dunedin Hospital dealing with specific ethical problems and wider issues.

He is a theologian from the University of Edinburgh who was the found-

ing editor of the "Journal of Medical Ethics.” “Heart transplantation is a valuable therapy undoubtedly, but it is only one therapy. It is going to have its success rate but it is not necessarily all that high.” What had happened, Professor Campbell said, was that these aspects had been hidden by the idea that transplants were “life-savers”. People asked how could New Zealand not have a unit? “New Zealand should look coolly at its population and its needs. Is a unit justified or would New Zealand be better to merge with Australia to

get a larger area for both donations of hearts and facilities? “The Government may in fact find it is more cost-effective to have a unit' here. It has to be looked at in terms of the over-all health budget. “But I would have thought it was becoming politically almost impossible for the Government not to agree to a unit somewhere. “It is hard for the Government to exercise any over-all planning in issues which have a high emotive appeal. “Had it been a matter of more beds for the mentally sub-normal or the adequacy of psychiatric services it would never have hit the news media in the same way.”