La collaboration médicale entre légistes et soignants peut aider les magistrats à autoriser les prélèvements d'organes pédiatriques lorsqu'un obstacle médicolégal pourrait s'y opposer ?

Paediatric organ donors are rare and mainly due to unnatural brain death. These traumatic circumstances issued from accidental or non-accidental events can lead to forensic reservations, which complicate the donation process. In the aim to recruit these young potential donors, health care professionals have to prove a close collaboration with the judiciary teams, by not interfering in the research of the exact cause of death. They must make available any medical and radiological data before and during operative period. In response, prosecutors will be more attentive to these intensive care doctors and the Organ Donation Service Teams (ODST) who solicit them for an authorization of a Multiple Organ Procurement (MOP). If the judiciary investigation permits it and if the medical examiner does not make any opposition, the prosecutors can initially give an agreement in principle. Later, if the donation process develops favourably with a parental agreement, an official judiciary authorization can be given to the ODST who claim it. This close collaboration and mutual respect between the healthcare workers and the judiciary teams, have contributed to facilitate recruitment of potential donors with an increased organ procurement in this cohort of 22 brain dead children under three years old, identified by the ODST.