Questions are being raised about the case of a 36-year-old Ontario woman who died of liver failure after she was rejected for a life-saving liver transplant after a medical review highlighted her prior alcohol use.
And for good reason, really. The supply of livers is too small to save everyone who needs them, so they give them to the people most likely to have a successful outcome. Basically every lived given to one person is sentencing another person to death. That’s just reality with supply being what it is.
She literally quit when she was told she had a failing liver that could not recover. Just to be clear, there is absolutely no way in hell that she didn’t know she was on the way to killing her liver with her drinking because there are a plethora of signs long before you get to the point where alcohol has destroyed your liver beyond its own ability to repair itself. (Which is incredibly prodigious. The liver is the single most regenerative organ in the human body)
So forgive me if I’m skeptical that she really would have stopped being an alcoholic after she received a liver transplant.
IMO this was a tragedy of her own making and the money and effort in transplanting a liver would have been a complete waste. (Even one offered by her SO.) Especially when there is such a deficit of available organs and the surgeons who do the transplanting are needed for patients who aren’t likely to go back on the sauce 6 months later.
the pain of a cramping liver is excrutiating. if you deal with that kind of unrelenting never stopping pain und don’t stop drinking, you are addicted for sure.
Notice that they never state she was an alcoholic. They also never atate she was a “high level” alcohol user. Just that she was an alcohol user.
You can make your own assumptions about her alcohol use, but in general these rules would also excluse a “normal” alcohol user with a congenital liver failure…
Since no one has mentioned it, USA has the same policy basically.
And for good reason, really. The supply of livers is too small to save everyone who needs them, so they give them to the people most likely to have a successful outcome. Basically every lived given to one person is sentencing another person to death. That’s just reality with supply being what it is.
Their boyfriend volunteered as a live donor. They weren’t asking to be put on the general register.
Which was determined to be unlikely to be successful given her condition, so she would have just died in the attempt.
Read the article again. It said early on her chances were actually quite good, something like 80%
That’s not true. Living donors can donate part of their liver.
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She literally quit when she was told she had a failing liver that could not recover. Just to be clear, there is absolutely no way in hell that she didn’t know she was on the way to killing her liver with her drinking because there are a plethora of signs long before you get to the point where alcohol has destroyed your liver beyond its own ability to repair itself. (Which is incredibly prodigious. The liver is the single most regenerative organ in the human body)
So forgive me if I’m skeptical that she really would have stopped being an alcoholic after she received a liver transplant.
IMO this was a tragedy of her own making and the money and effort in transplanting a liver would have been a complete waste. (Even one offered by her SO.) Especially when there is such a deficit of available organs and the surgeons who do the transplanting are needed for patients who aren’t likely to go back on the sauce 6 months later.
the pain of a cramping liver is excrutiating. if you deal with that kind of unrelenting never stopping pain und don’t stop drinking, you are addicted for sure.
In most places, if they’ve been clean for 6 - 12 months, they are no longer considered alcoholic in terms of transplantation. Similar to Canada
Notice that they never state she was an alcoholic. They also never atate she was a “high level” alcohol user. Just that she was an alcohol user.
You can make your own assumptions about her alcohol use, but in general these rules would also excluse a “normal” alcohol user with a congenital liver failure…