A ruling by the Chief Rabbinate Council Monday cleared the way for heart transplant operations in Israel. It came after weeks of discussion between the 12-man council and a panel of physicians which focussed on the definition of death as applied to the heart donor.
Although the rabbis had long insisted that death occurs only when the heart stops beating, they have now apparently accepted the medical definition that death is signaled when the brain ceases to function. They set stringent conditions, however.
According to the rabbis, the part of the brain that controls breathing must be moribund for 12 hours before the donor’s heart can be removed.
Doctors at Hadassah Medical Center, which says it is fully qualified and equipped to perform heart transplants, nevertheless hailed the Rabbinate position.
They said heartbeat can be maintained by artificial means for 12 hours after breathing ceases, assuring that a healthy, blood-nourished heart will be available for transplant. Another condition requires consent of the donor or next of kin and the concurrence of a panel of doctors which must include at least one Orthodox physician.
Hadassah Hospital said Wednesday that it is prepared to begin heart transplants immediately. In fact, it has been ready for the procedure for some time but delayed because it wanted to comply with rabbinical directives.
ROLE OF FORMER ASHKENAZIC CHIEF RABBI
Health Minister Shoshana Arbeli-Almoslino, who authorized two liver transplants at Rambam Hospital in Haifa two weeks ago without rabbinical sanction because time was of the essence, praised the Rabbinate Council’s ruling. So did leading physicians. One remarked Tuesday that it means Israel is now among the enlightened countries of the world.
Former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren may have given some impetus to the Rabbinate Council’s decision when he wrote in an article in The Jerusalem Post Sunday that organ transplants are not only halachically permissable but indeed a mitzvah because they can save lives.
He suggested in his article that cessation of breathing caused by brain death was the proper criterion and that breathing need stop for a minimum of only seven minutes before the patient can be declared dead.
But ultra-Orthodox circles in Jerusalem have refused to accept the Rabbinate Council’s ruling, insisting that heart transplants are murder. The extremist Eda Haredit sect ordered a boycott of Hadassah Hospital’s cardiac department. It warned that the boycott would be extended to the Medical Center as a whole, costing the hospital “millions of dollars a year.”
TOUCH-AND-GO FOR LIVER TRANSPLANT PATIENTS
Meanwhile, it was still touch-and-go this week for the two liver transplant patients, both of whom had to undergo a second round of surgery last week to stop internal hemhorraging. Mira Schichmanter, a 40-year-old mother of two from Kfar Saba, underwent the first liver transplant on October 22 and appeared to be making a slow but steady recovery until her setback.
Eliahu Schreier, 59, from Moshav Shoresh near Jerusalem, underwent two operations in less than 24 hours. He and Schichmanter remain on the critical list. Both were reported this week to be suffering from post-operative infections.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
