Family-based consent and motivation for familial organ donation in Bangladesh: An empirical exploration

Abstract

The government of Bangladesh approved the human organ transplantation law in 1999 and updated it in 2018. This legislation approved both living-related donor and posthumous organ transplantation. The law only allows family members to legally donate organs to their relatives. The main focus of this study was to explore how Bangladeshis make donation decisions on familial organs for transplantation. My ethnographic fieldwork with forty participants (physicians and nurses, a healthcare administrator, organ donors, recipients, and their relatives) disclosed that the organ donation decision was family-based. An assessment of the relationship between religion, culture, and biomedicine leads to the conclusion that deciding on donating organs to relatives is primarily family-based and is perceived to be steeped in Islamic ethical principles and religious cultural tradition. The family-based consent and motivation for donor-recipient pair organ transplantation strengthen an altruistic environment for the family and act as the moral and legal authority that ensures ethical healthcare outcomes for Bangladeshis.