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Blog and Lose a Kidney

via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing (quoted in full) and the Orlando Sentinel:

Would-be kidney transplant recipient denied because of website. Alex Crionas needs a kidney, and his friend Patrick Garrity would like to give him one. But the transplant was recently blocked by a coordinating group because Crionas published an account of his need for the procedure on a personal website. The group said Crionas' online outreach gave him an unfair advantage over other candidates who may not have internet resources.
They went through rigorous blood and tissue testing last month at LifeLink HealthCare Institute, which coordinates the transplant program for Tampa General Hospital, and say they were declared physically compatible for the operation. But the hope of a new life for the 28-year-old Crionas didn't last long. Crionas got a letter earlier this month from LifeLink, a Tampa nonprofit that links patients and donors, telling him his request for surgery was rejected because Crionas had a Web site seeking a donor. "I was dumbfounded," Crionas said. "We didn't even meet through the Web site."

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Phil Wolff : 2/25/2005 04:18:00 PM. 4 comments

Comments:

Surely if transplant applicants are to be rejected because they have a website appealing for a donor, it should be clearly written on the application form or on the hospital website or somewhere so that people know. If it isn't a well publicised fact then i think the applicant has a right of appeal to a higher authority. I know in the cadaver transplant system it goes on the basis of best match but even then there are priorities of need when more than one match occurs. And then everyone has to be anonymous although this is not so with living donor. I had an offer from a friend and there was no thought of any other possibility than if we passed the matching test we could go ahead. I wonder what the ethics group at the hospital involved had to say and whether that was in writing and open for discussion? New technologies and techniques obviously often raise difficult situations that can seem absurd until they get sorted out and there is better understanding through communication of needs.

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