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Australia's hospitals are being paid to harvest transplant organs from dead patients.
A controversial new "activity-based funding" program administered by the federal Organ and Tissue Authority is telling hospitals they can receive up to $11,400 for each patient who becomes a donor, the Sunday Herald Sun reports.
The funding is aimed at securing consent from grieving families and encouraging hospitals to keep alive critically ill patients who would normally not be revived.
"The additional funding provided over the payment for donors identified in the ICU recognises the need for the organ donation team to establish a rapport with the potential donor's family and facilitate family consent," the program's information notes say.
The money encourages hospitals to keep alive critically ill patients who would normally not be revived. But doctors, ethicists and family groups have criticised it as "reprehensible" and "unseemly".
"It's as sick as it gets," said John Morrissey, spokesman for the Australian Family Association. "To lean on families when they are most vulnerable is reprehensible."
The $17 million, three-year initiative - endorsed by the health ministers - is aimed at meeting hospital costs associated with transplants, but doctors said it encouraged hospitals and intensive care units to pressure people into allowing their dying family members to become organ donors.
"This payment recognises that patients arriving in the ED (emergency department) who are identified as potential organ donors require medical management to maintain their suitability as donors prior to their transfer to ICU," the program's information notes say.
"This payment applies to potential donors that would not normally be transferred to the ICU as part of their treatment or end-of-life care."
Meetings to discuss the funding were understood to have been held this week in at least two major Melbourne hospitals.
Doctors and ethicists have expressed their concern at the organ donor program.
"If a hospital identifies a patient as being suitable for organ donation - that is, likely to die - and if certain protocols are followed and the relatives agree, payment is available to the hospital or intensive care unit. That is unseemly," a senior Melbourne doctor said.
Bio-ethicist Associate Prof Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said the model of funding needed public debate.
"It's important pressure isn't put on families and if they think that the doctor is pushing it (donation) for the hospital, that loses sight of the importance of the procedure," Prof Tonti-Filippini said.
A spokesperson for the Organ and Tissue Authority said: "The funding will assist in reimbursing hospitals for organ and tissue donation activities that represent an additional cost to the hospital."
