Table 5.

Harms of unsuccessful DCD as reported by professional involved in the donation process

Harm	Representative quotations from stakeholders
Waste	You are not maximizing the functionality of the organs you’re retrieving just because the process is slow.
Inability to honor the donor	I feel there’s a sense of disappointment, and I think they kind of suffer that loss all over again, in a sense, because they weren’t able to honor their loved one’s wishes
Struggle to find meaning	My experience has been that it’s very difficult, because…at that point It [donation] becomes…the only positive thing they were able to get out of that, you know, catastrophic scenario was taken away from them. It puts people through hell…A lot of them have to come to grips with this as like, you know, as like the one saving grace of his horrible situation is that they’re going to be an organ donor. And then they don’t in more than half the time.
Disrupted bereavement	There’d be a lot of sadness, because…there’s just no closure, and there’s a lot of confusion about what happens next.
Loss to recipients	When anybody donates a kidney, it doesn’t necessarily physically benefit that person. It benefits the person to whom the kidney is given.