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.
The comparison is apples and oranges. They only include the cost of the surgery itself, not the cost of after-surgical care, the potential cost of complications to both the patient and the donor, etc. Then there’s the cost if the partial liver donation doesn’t take, or if the patient relapses.
Obviously, there’s also a lot of potential upside to having the patient survive, I just don’t think the odds of that were all that high.
Surgeon time is precious as well.
In the article, it shows that the hospital spent significantly more slowly letting her die than the average cost of the transplant.
The comparison is apples and oranges. They only include the cost of the surgery itself, not the cost of after-surgical care, the potential cost of complications to both the patient and the donor, etc. Then there’s the cost if the partial liver donation doesn’t take, or if the patient relapses.
Obviously, there’s also a lot of potential upside to having the patient survive, I just don’t think the odds of that were all that high.
So let the free market sort out the organ redistribution problem!
I’m a free market entrepreneur and I’d like to solve your organ shortage and homeless problem all at once.
D: