Bionic Man 1. Organ and tissue donations are medical processes that save and transform lives. Organs and tissues are removed from a donor and transplanted into someone who is very ill or dying from organ failure or into one of the many Australians whose lives are transformed through eye and tissue donations. Australia has one of the highest transplant success rates in the world and research shows that the majority of Australians support organ and tissue donation. 2. People who need an organ transplant are usually very ill or dying, because one or more of their own organs is failing. They range from babies and children through to older people. People needing a tissue transplant can be of any age. In some cases, tissue transplantation can save lives. More often, it greatly improves the recipient’s life. 3. First step in an organ donation is to determine that the donor patient is truly dead. The medical community defines death in a number of ways, but for organ transplant, the patient must meet the criteria for brain death or cardiac death. Brain death means that there is no brain activity and no hope of recovery, but the patient's heart is still beating and he or she is still breathing with the assistance of a ventilator. Cardiac death means that the patient's heart has stopped beating, although he or she may not be brain dead; this criteria is usually used in cases in which someone suffers from major head trauma, but still has some slight brain function, and therefore cannot be considered dead until his or her heart has stopped. A series of tests are conducted to confirm brain death, ensuring that the patient is truly, irrevocably dead. This can be traumatic, as the patient appears to be alive, but he or she is not; sometimes hospital staff must actually use extreme measures to keep the patient "alive" so that the organs will continue to be