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.
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…
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.
Doctor here who has referred patients for transplant. No. You must be six months sober to be eligible for the transplant list. There’s so few livers to go around, they need to be sure the recipient isn’t going to just break the next one.
It’s rare to suddenly need a liver; they usually take months to fail and this gives the patient and doctor months of notice to try treating the failure first (including lifestyle changes and meds) before getting sick enough to go apply for a transplant.
I used to trust HCPs, but I know many of them now and have heard them shit-talk and judge their patients for mental health issues and drug use (among other things). I would NEVER, EVER tell a doctor or nurse about any form of drug or alcohol use now, or any kind of anger issues that could possibly be interpreted as aggressive. Especially not in a hospital where everything gets recorded in an electronic chart and may be used against you in the future. Fuck that.
I’m sorry you have such a low opinion, maybe you heard someone venting about their job after work?
You really think lying about your drug use is safe? It’s dangerous to give many types of anesthesia if you’re on drugs or alcohol. We don’t particularly care if you use or not, we don’t tell police or family, you just need to be honest so we can do our job correctly.
Wait, so if someone was ever an alcoholic - they gonna be denied? Even if they stopped drinking for many years?
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…
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.
Doctor here who has referred patients for transplant. No. You must be six months sober to be eligible for the transplant list. There’s so few livers to go around, they need to be sure the recipient isn’t going to just break the next one.
It’s rare to suddenly need a liver; they usually take months to fail and this gives the patient and doctor months of notice to try treating the failure first (including lifestyle changes and meds) before getting sick enough to go apply for a transplant.
I used to trust HCPs, but I know many of them now and have heard them shit-talk and judge their patients for mental health issues and drug use (among other things). I would NEVER, EVER tell a doctor or nurse about any form of drug or alcohol use now, or any kind of anger issues that could possibly be interpreted as aggressive. Especially not in a hospital where everything gets recorded in an electronic chart and may be used against you in the future. Fuck that.
I’m sorry you have such a low opinion, maybe you heard someone venting about their job after work?
You really think lying about your drug use is safe? It’s dangerous to give many types of anesthesia if you’re on drugs or alcohol. We don’t particularly care if you use or not, we don’t tell police or family, you just need to be honest so we can do our job correctly.
Their boyfriend was willing to be a living donor for them. So you aren’t talking about a scarce resource here.