A Third of Patients On Transplant List Are Not Eligible

[flashl]

The list of patients waiting for organ transplants, which is widely used to promote organ donations, includes thousands who are ineligible for the operations, according to statistics kept by the national network that manages the allocation of organs.

More than a third of the nearly 98,000 patients on the list at any one time are classified as "inactive," meaning they could not be given an organ if it became available because they are too sick, or not sick enough, or for some other, often unexplained, reason.

...

"The wait list is dishonest," said Donna L. Luebke, a nurse who said she was rebuked by UNOS officials when she complained about the list near the end of the three years she served on the organization's board of directors. "The public deserves to know the true numbers."

The revelation comes at a time when advocates of organ donation have come under fire for using increasingly aggressive strategies to obtain organs, justifying their efforts by citing the long and steadily growing waiting list.

Washington Post

[Celebration]

1. huh!

I'm amazed at what people come up with for "issues." I do admit that average waiting time for an organ may be a better measure than numbers on a waiting list. But it isn't as if there are enough eligible donors for the demand. I don't see it as something where the need is being met. Let's just say I don't really get this controversy.

Are people supposed to give up their place on the waiting list because they temporarily become unable to be a recipient, just so the people cannot use those numbers as a marketing tool? Anyway, whether it 90 thousand people on a list vs. 60 thousand, it just doesn't seem to me to make much of a difference from a marketing perspective.

And, what's wrong with encouraging organ donation anyway, when there is a documented shortage?

Weird.

[Summer93]

2. Two way street

Perhaps not every recipient can remain well enough to accomplish the surgery and therefore are taken off the list as well.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

3. How about making people opt out of donating?

Make it automatic when people renew their licenses they get signed up as a organ donor unless they fill out like 10 pages of opt out paperwork. That would get the numbers up. The new research into bone marrow transplants in conjunction with organ transplants is promising for transplant recipients to live a more normal life. Just throwing out ideas here, before anyone starts flaming away.


David

[lizerdbits]

4. I think that's a good idea

There should be an option to decline since I think some religions have burial ritual requirements that may conflict with that. Maybe we should go for an opt out system instead of an opt in.

[China_cat]

5. My niece did a video on transplants for her senior project.

She found that, in the Jewish tradition at least, the religious tradition of burial of an intact body is outweighed by the need to save a life.

[lizerdbits]

6. Thanks

I didn't know which ones. They and anyone with similar beliefs should be allowed to opt out of donation.

[Book Lover]

7. Why should the state have an a priori interest in my corpse?

And may I point out (if you're a medic, you already know this, but many other folks don't) that not all donated bodies go to organ donation. I don't want my torso used in bulletproof vest testing, nor my head to be used by plastic surgeons practicing or their vain trade, nor do I want anyone profiting from my use of my body thereof.