"Is my patient now dead really?" - a common question from NOK of a BSD patient, particularly in case of organ donation and harvesting. "But still his/her heart is beating, is breathing (on life support)!" Difficult query: Is the soul (spirit/ atma/ ruh/ the divine order) still there? If not, when has it left? How to determine the time about its departure while on continuous intensive monitoring?
Dear Rabiul Alam ,
Death is only declared with death of the heart , So the brain dead patient is not dead body but he is still alive that‘ why we still call him a patient .
Regarding the soul of the brain dead patient , it is still in his body and it leaves his body only with the death of his heart ...
So I have a belief that taking the patient’s organs for organ donation at that time is a crime because he is still alive and it is just killing of that patient .
Best Regards
Dear Prof Rizk, Thanks for your valuable comment. I do honour your opinion, but I have some different view.
If death is only declared after cessation of all cardiac activities then donated organ procuring will not be possible, because most of the organs get damaged almost immediately after failure of circulation (oxygenation).
Brain stem death (BSD) is declared after performing rigorous examinations, recommended and accredited tests done by an able board, not sparing a little doubt. After this, no chances remain at all to revive these patients.
In case of brain death patients, the rhythm of heart is maintained pharmacologically and sometimes by electrical stimulation (pacemaker). The lungs are ventilated fully mechanically and oxygenation is maintained. These patients don’t have any instinct central impulse or reflexes.
Although some patients may show indistinct limb movement with peripheral stimulus (pinching), those are due to their intact spinal or local reflexes (interneuronal synapses). These are not at all a sign of life.
From Islamic point of view: "It is Allah that takes the souls at death and those that die not (He takes their souls) during their sleep. Those on whom He has passed the Decree of death He keeps back (their souls from returning to their bodies); but the rest He sends (their souls back to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily, in this are Signs for those who reflect." [Surah Az-Zumar: 42]
So, if the soul is taken by Al-Mighty Allah while a person on sleep (instead of all spontaneous physiological activities), then I think, it should also happen while a person is in life support with no provable central reflexes (BSD) i.e., no sign of life. Islam is ever scientific, indeed!
Therefore, BSD means death and the divine order i.e., the soul is withdrawn. And the donated organs harvesting should be allowed in that situation. This is my humble opinion. May Allah forgive and rectify me, if I did something wrong while presenting this statement.
In the first years of the 60ies a young South African surgeon declared dead a patient, despite her heart was still beating. That surgeon was dr. Christian Barnard, who , in that way performed his first heart transplantation, needing an alive heart. Despite that success, some moral and ethical questions arose. Such matters led to more selective criteria before declaring dead a patient. Usually no vital sign or beat from heart are sufficient to make patient be declared clinically dead, because presumibly the brain death will follow few minutes later, but in some USA states, cerebral death may be considered sufficient for a death declaration. Although many philosophical and religious considerations may be done. at last, every man is alone in front of the great mistery of his death, as well as any doctor is alone in front of the death of a patient of his..
i think soul departs from body permanently when heart stops leading to death
In brain dead person soul is still there but not able to make use of body as body is not fit for functioning
There is no purpose of soul in body if actions can not be performed so better to use organs for transplantation
The soul remains as long as there is life in the physical body. As rightly mentioned by Dr Satish Narula, the soul of a brain dead individual is in an inactive or dormant state. As soon as a person dies the soul leaves the body to enter the spiritual world.
Soul makes the body alive and keeps the body alive - the whole body or part of the body. So, soul of a brain death patient is still in the body till stopping activity of heart.
There are several important pieces of information that we should be aware of and know.
* The original medical definition of death was based on the ceasing of heart's activity. After transplantations started to be performed, the definition changed to brain death.
* Soul of a brain dead person is still connected to the body. The body is fully animated by Qi/Prana and Cal live quite long in such state.
* Soul cannot use the body and mind but is still there.
* The soul of donor knows all what is going to happen and what is happening during taking organ(s) out of the body. It must be taken seriously.
* Soul is still communicating with the surrounding world using its native communication channels, different from those physical.
* It is important that the donor's soul agrees with the transplantation of organs from the body where it currently resides. If not then it can result is wild and quick transplanted organ rejection.
* Receiver's soul must agree with transplantation too. If not then it usually leads to quick and wild organ rejection.
* As a person after heart transplantation, I have to witness that I came into contact with the soul which owned the transplanted heart and got agreement/permission from the donor to get the heart.
It happened three weeks before the transplantation, a few days/week before medical doctors mentioned the possibility of a donor. It was an unbelievable experience but there was no single problem among me and the transplanted, gifted heart.
* Since that time, I am working hard to pay back this incredible gift. The only thing slowing me down are serious side effects of drugs used after heart transplant t
* We are in contact with donor soul. There is going full support from the soul of the donor of the precious gift.
Alma es aliento; no tiene sustancia. Mientras se vive está en nosotros, aunque nuestro cerebro esté muerto. Luego, pero esto ya no es ciencia, se une a Dios.
Translate "Alma es aliento; no tiene sustancia. Mientras se vive está en nosotros, aunque nuestro cerebro esté muerto. Luego, pero esto ya no es ciencia, se une a Dios." => Soul is breath; It has no substance. While living it is in us, even if our brain is dead. Then, but this is no longer science, it joins God.
Souls really have no substance, it is pure energy. It is a place where the energy of our past experiences, actions, and deeds are stored.
The soul is present in animals and even flowers. Every living creature has a soul. The soul is perpetuating life.
Hello everybody, according to some of your opinions, if the soul remains within a BSD patient till cardiac death, then, are we harvesting the donated organs from a living person?
Dear Md Rabiul Alam
the soul stays around the body after death for a little while to give comfort to the ones mourning. But, if there is no one to mourn, I do not think it stays. Because the soul doesn't stay, I do not think that it's presence should preclude the diagnosis of brain death or death itself. God will rejoin the body and soul on Judgement Day.
brigid
Dear Brigid Conroy , lot many thanks for your very valuable opinion.
Dear Dr Md Rabiul Alam
a personal comment, I have felt a soul leave the room on several occasions. My dad and a close friend. As a nurse , I have also felt the presence of the deceased who have come to keep the dying company. Have you noticed this yourself?
brigid
I experienced and keenly observed many scenarios of the dying patients while their souls were departing! Even in case of absolutely comatose patients in mechanical ventilation... it clearly happened and detected at most of the time with vigilant monitoring.
Dear Rabiul Alam,
You gave a very serious ethical question that deserves to be discussed. It is true that when the body is alive, even with brain death present, it is still attached by the soul.
There are other aspects to it. By keeping people alive on support machines, we are breaking the natural course of events. 99.9% or more will die in such situations and their soul will get naturally disconnected by a process that is excellently described in the Tibetan book of the dead.
Without these techniques, we have no donors. Hence, there are two steps. The first, we keep gravelly wounded alive. The second, we harvest organs from those people.
Until we start to understand fully what we are doing, we must act with the utmost respect. Even the donors are incapable to use their physical senses, they still have the capacity to observe what is going on with their bodies.
According to my personal understanding, we must provide donors the highest possible respect and communicate with them, despite their obvious physical disabilities, as with people who can communicate. It is fundamental to explain to donors what and most importantly why we are going to do certain things.
They still perceive the world and their body but only in by us immeasurable ways.
In my case, I am still in contact with the donor's soul. I do feel a big responsibility for this gift. One result of this responsibility is the continuation of my research on complex systems in medicine and predictions of arrhythmias despite having serious side effects from medical drugs that I do use (very high pain in nerves, muscles, constant fight with infections, etc.). It is my duty.
Just one remark at the end, some energies see attached to the transplanted organ(s) when can and definitely have an influence on the life of the organ receiver.
Jiri Kroc
Dear Jiří Kroc , your valuable points are quite important to ponder upon. I guess lots of spiritual influences and explanations in the multifaceted affairs of organ donation, during their harvesting and their intangible effects on the recipients as well. Thanks- Rabiul.
Dear Rabiul Alam, thank you. All that I covered is telling us that medicine is still not sufficiently acknowledging the existence of already proven scientific observations about live force (Qi/Prana) and the spiritual aspect of all living creatures.
This is where future medicine practiced on the west will discover the source of power above our physical bodies. We are not mechanistic devices, we are resulting from so far not fully acknowledged life promoting and driving processes, which stays behind all living.
Our vocabulary is not suitable to describe this subtle world of energies. Luckily, quantum mechanics and quantum biology are slowly nearing to the understanding of this subtle and enigmatic world.
Thank you for a stimulating question
Jiri
Dear Colleague, That is nice to see your interest in this and related questions. The lifeforce can be observed by some of their aspects even using the current scientific tools.
I came across a couple of researchers or physicians who are uncovering parts of this exciting information.
For example, it was found that
* blood flow is activated and starts in capillaries by the ionization of the layer of water covering the surface of capillaries. Protons present in the blood perpetuate the flow of blood that effectively stops in capilaries. This was replicated by an experiment in a laboratory using a capillary, water, and sunlight.
* HIV virus can be sent through the internet in the form of EMG waves recordings and assembled again using PCR from a medium that experiences this EMG information.
* the heart has a small number of neurons in the order of thousands and hence, can feel and remember those feelings.
* those observations are shifting our current understanding of medicine towards holism and respect of energies and processes that really animate our bodies.
Hopefully, you find this information interesting. It lays at the border of our current scientific understanding of biological systems and their behavior.
Dear Matthew Henry Vincent Byrne , thanks for your valuable opinion. Then, is there doubts about souls' existence?
Oh no... it is observed that atheists' views are far diverse and covertly more confusing. The truth is ONE. Thanks.
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