Organ waiting list is overstated by one third

By Michael Fraase

Saturday, 22 March 2008 02:26PM CST

Section: ESRD

Organ transplantMore than one third of the patients on the waiting list for organ transplants are either “ineligible” or “inactive,” according to Rob Stein’s Washington Post report. “Inactive,” according to Stein, means “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.”

I’m one of them.

Some time ago I put myself on hold on the kidney transplant list at the University of Minnesota. I had already been called several times with available cadaver organs and passed, moving the organs along to the next in line. After eight years of kidney failure, I’m still struggling with the ethical issues swirling around the transplant industry, and let me tell you this bit of news doesn’t help. I have no problem with being dropped from the waiting list and, should I decide to opt for a transplant, starting over at the bottom.

As someone who would likely be classified as “inactive,” I had no idea my place on the list was being used to mislead stakeholders—potential donors, recipients, and policymakers—about the level of need for organs. Make no mistake: there are more people that need organs than there are available organs. But that the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the organization that is contracted by the federal government to oversee the transplant industry in the US, would misrepresent the organ waiting list is extremely disturbing.

Stein’s sources said that the size of the waiting list is “often used in lobbying efforts to seek funding or to change organ-procurement policies.”

This is especially troubling because strategies for obtaining organs have become steadily and increasingly more aggressive and the long, growing waiting list is cited as justification. Stein reports that more than 36 percent of the patients on the kidney waiting list never completed the required suitability evaluations (something I did shortly after being diagnosed with end-stage renal disease and starting dialysis).

Former UNOS board member and nurse, Donna Luebke—who donated a kidney to her sister more than a decade ago—was frank in her assessment: “The wait list is dishonest. The public deserves to know the true numbers. ... The list is what they use for propaganda. It’s the marketing tool. It’s always: ‘The waiting list. The waiting list. The growing waiting list.’ It’s what they use to argue that we need more organs. But it’s dishonest.”

Permalink | (0) Comments

Page 1 of 1 pages