Word: transplanters
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...compete for an organ with not only patients in her local area but liver patients all across the country as well. She might have been one of the sickest in Iowa, but in that larger population, she would have been considered relatively well off. Fortunately, Makenzie got her transplant last...
...could have gone to someone on the brink of death in nearby Fort Worth, Texas. Varying patterns of supply and demand can create tenfold differences in waiting times. According to computer models cited by the government, these inefficiencies cost as many as 300 lives each year. Says John Fung, transplant director at the University of Pittsburgh: "There's no justification to keep the current system...
Sounds virtuous, but opponents of the rule say the equity argument is a smoke screen for a baser motive. They point out that transplants are down dramatically in big centers as smaller regional centers have proliferated. The University of Pittsburgh, for example, did 540 liver transplants in 1991, but only 200 last year. The cost per patient can be as high as $300,000. "You're talking millions and millions of dollars lost to those big transplant centers," says Iowa surgeon Maureen Martin...
Moreover, opponents say, the new system could actually drive up costs. Sicker patients require more expensive follow-up care than average patients do, and they have a lower overall chance of survival. Officials at major transplant centers also point out that they are not the only ones open to charges of greed: small transplant centers would probably lose patients and income under the new regulations...
...this political wrangling leaves potential transplant patients in limbo, adding uncertainty to the anguish they already suffer. Like Bryan Lee, Rita May Bolen has had enough. From her home in a New Orleans suburb, she calmly says her husband Leon, 71, is "sitting in a chair dying." They have been waiting 10 months for a liver. In August Leon was second in line for an organ that was about to become available, but it went to a sicker patient, a young father. "It's the fairest way," says Rita May. But watching the debate over regulatory changes--which could have...