Was Feargal right all along.............?

In 1968 Christian Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on a lucky recipient named Louis Washkansky. Nobody remembered to get the name of the unlucky donor. Unfortunately Mr Washkansky died fourteen days later, which was a lot sooner than he would have died had he not had the transplant, but history (and Mr Barnard) prefers to skate over that point.

A further 100 transplants were done in 1968 but by the early seventies they had all but stopped as surgeons realised that they had the actual transplant bit cracked, they just couldn’t keep people alive for long enough afterwards to be worth the bother.

In 1974 a drug called Cyclosporine was discovered which solved the problem of organ rejection and since then transplantation techniques have improved to the point where pretty much anything can be taken out of someone and put into somebody else.

Unfortunately, due to our preoccupation with ideas of our own immortality despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and therefore a reluctance to register as an organ donor, there is a bit of a problem with supply and demand. As a result there are waiting lists and where there is a waiting list, capitalism will ensure that there is a black market for those with the means to pay.

The practices and money involved in the organ broking trade are enough to make a football agent blush. A kidney is worth £13,000, £25,000 for a heart, £15,000 for a liver and throw in £10,000 a piece for each eye means that just walking around you’re worth the thick end of £100,000.

Consequently, for a lot of people their body organs are their single most valuable asset. With that in mind you would think that we would be sat around in pubs and clubs up and down the country espousing about how much we were worth. The news would carry monthly reports on the price of organs and if they had gone up then we would all feel a bit better and if they had gone down then it would all be a bit depressing.

But obviously this doesn’t happen because it would be completely irrelevant. It would matter not whether our heart was worth a hundred pounds or a million pounds because we could no more live without it than we could live without or lungs or kidneys.

So why is it a national obsession what our houses are worth? Why does the ten o’clock news tell us every month whether house prices have gone up or down when it is largely immaterial to all except a first time buyer? We can no more live without a house than we can live without one of our organs.

Perhaps part of the reason is that it provides a feeling of security in our old age and we think of it as part of our pension. There is a natural flaw in this logic and that is that you cannot live in a pension.

To live off the proceeds of an asset, you need to sell the asset and your newlywed buyers might be a bit miffed to wake up the next morning and find you in their en suite. “Oh, you thought I was moving out after you bought the house? So sorry, bit embarrassing all round eh? Never mind I’m sure we’ll rub along, now can you hand me that towel?”

All is not lost though because one day when you're old and infirm the nice man from the council will pop round and add up all of your belongings. He will graciously allow you to keep £21,500 and then sell everything else that you own, including your house, to pay for your care.

And if that sounds harsh maybe we should be grateful that they haven’t clicked on how much our organs are worth. “Now come now Mr Smith, are you really sure you need two kidneys? We do have a budget deficit you know….”

A run of the mill care home costs about £700 per week, which is £36,000 per year. Given that the average house price is £224,000, that means that it takes 25 years of hard slog to pay off your mortgage to fund six years in a nursing home chatting to the person next to you who has never worked, has claimed benefits all their life and hasn’t paid a penny towards the care they are receiving. All subsidised by the sale of your house. Gives you a warm fuzzy feeling doesn’t it?

So before you ring to book in with the council surgeon consider a more elegant solution. Eton only costs £28,000 per year with full board so why not sell up on your 65th birthday and book yourself in. At least you can be learning something useful.

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