Jess

Brief Outline:

Jess is a Specialist Nurse in organ donation.

Specialist Nurse Jess explains why the organ donation register is important.

Hello, my name’s Jess.

I’m one of the specialist nurses in organ donation. The organ donor register is so important to us. It is a tool that we have that is something that we can show your family a decision that you have made about your wishes about organ donation.

When family, when we meet families, they’re in the, the depths of grief.

It’s usually after a, a huge event that has happened and they’re, they’re so, they feel out of control.

They’re, they’re lost, they’re frightened, and then we come along and bring the option of organ donation as an end of life care decision.

Being able to show a family a tangible fact, so something that you yourself has signed and completed with a wish that you have made when you may not have even spoken about your organ donation decision is so important to be able to share to the family and to show them that this is a decision that you’ve made and is also something that they can help support.

They can be part of that journey and help fulfil one of your, the final wishes that you’ve made.

It also brings up a way for us to talk about your organ donation decision, about your views and opinions, what you’d like and what you didn’t like.

The people that we speak to are the most important people in the world, the people that know you the best.

And so this process isn’t able to go ahead without them. They hold all of the most important information that makes transplantation as safe as possible.

Jess says it’s important to tell your family your view on Organ Donation.

I would say it is one of the most important conversations that you’ll ever have talking about your decision about organ donation.

It’s an incredibly difficult conversation to think about, and I always say this is to think about because I think you’ll actually find when you have that conversation, it comes very natural.

It’s difficult to think about what will happen when we die. It’s not a thought that is readily available in our minds, and often people will push it to the back and hope that it never happens as we all do. We all hope that will never happen.

But the reality is that we will all die at at some point. And it’s so important to tell your family your wishes about your end of life care choices.

When we speak to families, they’re in the depths of grief that it’s usually a very traumatic event that has led them to be in the intensive care or the a&e department and meeting with ourselves.

And so if they’ve had that conversation with you about what you would like to do regarding organ donation and your end of life care wishes, it makes it so much easier because it’s something that they can pull from their past memories and it’s something that they feel comfortable that it’s what you wanted to do. We like to think that the conversation isn’t about death and dying.

It’s more a conversation about potentially saving the lives of many other people.

That conversation that might seem very daunting and scary to have, when you think about the side of it, about saving people’s lives and the transplantations that may come from this, it’s an incredible, uplifting conversation.

Talking about your legacy as a person is incredibly important and it’s a conversation.

Jess explains why the law on Deemed Consent is useful.

The deemed consent has been incredibly helpful in my role as a specialist nurse.

Sometimes the word ‘law’ can seem a little bit scary and very confusing. I’ve seen the law help many families. It’s there to aid us as a tool and also as a population that we all feel if we do feel comfortable in saving people’s lives after we die.

The tool is incredibly helpful for those families who maybe haven’t had this discussion and feel unsure about what their loved one would’ve done.

What I found most helpful about the law is that it’s a tangible fact that exists, that we can speak about, that people have an awareness that actually the law did change.

It opens up the room for conversation. It allows us to talk about how we can help you and your family in that, in the depths of grief, in their en environment of the intensive care unit, but also allows them to speak to me as a specialist nurse to tell me their wishes. Your wishes, and what you would’ve wanted.

Specialist nurse Jess discusses the family’s role in organ donation.

Your family are an integral part of organ donation. Organ donation isn’t able to go ahead without the people that are closest to you, be that family and friends. You have the key information about yourself after you’ve died. Your family are integral in telling us about not only your medical history, but also your social history, your lifestyle, and things that are important to you for organ donations.

Go ahead. Since the law has changed, it is incredibly important that your family are able to support your organ donation decision. The law has changed, which means it has taken that burden of making an organ donation decision of your family. We all want transplantation to be as safe as possible, and when you join the open donor Register, you do so with the intention of saving as many people’s lives as possible.

In order for that to happen, your family are truly key to giving us all of the information. They’re the people that know you best. Part of the organ donation process is that we will go through all of your past medical history and any medications or any tests that you may have had in your lifetime.

However, your family and friends are the most important people who know about your lifestyle, about the things that you are interested in, any concerns you may have had with your medical history or your lifestyle since, since they’ve known you.

They are an integral part of the process. For organ donation to happen you have to die in very specific circumstances within an intensive care unit.

Often it’s led to something extremely traumatic for your family. They’re in the depths of grief. They’re often very scared about what’s happened to you, and dealing with the fact that sadly, somebody is going to pass away who they love very dearly.

It’s so important to help take the burden off your relatives and your families and your loved ones by sharing your organ donation decision and telling your loved ones what you would’ve wanted, what your wishes are, and allowing them to be empowered to support that decision when they’re facing the most incredible saddest of circumstances.

Nobody wants to think about dying or what might happen to us after we die. However, giving your family the empowerment to know that you wish to leave a legacy and to save the lives of other people can be an incredibly enlightening and turn that situation that’s extremely tragic and sad into something really positive.

It allows everybody to come together collaboratively. It allows me as a specialist nurse to try and take some of the burden off your family, but also empower them to get included and tell us all about you and all about everything that you would’ve wanted, and help support your organ donation decision to save the lives of others.

Jess explains why families might say “no” to organ donation.

Often your families or your relatives have had a really long tiresome stay. They are exhausted. They’ve been given multiple amounts of different information from all different kinds of people. And to see one of our specialist nurses at quite at the end of the process after end of life care has being discussed and planned, starting to be made, it can be incredibly stressful.

Organ donation does take a little bit of time to set up. It’s incredibly important that we make sure that your organs are matched to suitable recipients and that the transplant is as safe and as long lasting as possible.

To ask your relatives and family for that gift of time from themselves to care for you for a little bit longer while we sought the organ donation process out, is a huge ask and not something that we take lightly. It is an incredible honor to be able to look after your family and yourself in the process of organ donation, but my role as a specialist nurse is to take the burden off your family.

If you’ve had that conversation about your wishes about end of life, it can become a very empowering situation. It can turn something that’s incredibly sad and incredibly horrible to think about into something that is an amazing opinion of saving people’s lives.

It’s also one of the only decisions that I may be able to tell your family, something that you have made in life.

It’s incredibly important to be able to empower your family, to support us through the process and ensure that we’re able to save as many lives as possible together.

Jess says organ donation is a routine part of end of life care.

Organ Donation is incredibly rare. You have to die in very specific circumstances and often your admission to the intensive care unit has been an an incredibly tragic circumstance.

Your family’s often in shock, frightened, worried about what the future ahead may look like,and organ donation may not be something that anybody has ever considered.

It might be something that you have considered and opted into the Organ donor register or assumed, presumed consent with our new law change.

However, it might not be something that your families have considered or talked about, and that’s why it’s so important that we share our organ donation decision.

Organ donation is a very normal part of end of life care. It’s something that is happening and is a conversation that is spoken about with all relatives who are suitable for potential organ donation.

It’s something that we need to speak about more and be a more tea time topic conversation. Our decisions and what we want of our wishes are as important as what we wish for after the process.

In terms of our funeral plans, our song choices, organ donation is all part of the exact same circumstances.

Jess talks about ethnicity and organ donation.

When the Organ Donation donation law changed, there were a lot of myths and confusions about what that may look like and how that may seem.

Particularly with patients from ethnic minorities, it’s incredibly important that your decisions and wishes are heard.

It’s incredibly important that you speak to people that you trust who will uphold those decisions and wishes after you die.