kidney4debra

I saw a banner at the corner of Westwood and Veteran today while driving back from UCLA. It basically said “Looking for kidney donor” and a website address. At first I thought it was pretty cool that someone is mounting a campaign to look for a kidney donor, but after visiting the website, I am a bit conflicted.

At first glance, I thought Debra was a younger patient, perhaps spending years on dialysis, and suffering from a genetic disorder. It turned out Debra was a 66-year old woman, and she had not even started dialysis. Her stage 5 kidney disease is likely from years of undiagnosed hypertension (per website). I do not know her lab numbers, but your eGFR has to be lower than 15 to be placed on the kidney recipient list. If she is stage 5, then she should be eligible. The website mentions that she was evaluated for transplant but does not give any more information regarding status. She also has three adult sons but does not say why none of them are a live donor. She is also blood type AB+, which can basically receive a kidney from any blood type. At UCLA, after three years, 50% of patients with blood type AB have received a transplant, while the number is less than half of that for type O and B patients.

Sure, dialysis sucks but it appears Debra is not yet on dialysis because she does not want to take a hit on her quality of life. She also does not explain why her family cannot or will not donate, and has the shortest wait list time for a deceased donor kidney. I am extremely fortunate that my sister was a match and willing to donate, so I do not want to criticize other kidney failure patients. However, it does seem like she wants to shortcut the process. There are hundreds of thousands of dialysis patients that have experienced this loss of “quality of life” she wants to avoid. Should they get preference on a live donor kidney? Similarly, she seemed to have live a full life. Should teenagers and young-adults that have been on dialysis all their life get a chance to live a little? I guess after being on dialysis and living a “diminished” quality of life for almost four years, I’m less sympathetic to Debra’s plight.

If any reader wants to donate a kidney, please check out this webpage at National Kidney Foundation, or UCLA Living Donor Transplant webpage for more information.

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There is a link to UCLA’s Living Donor Program questionnaire at her website. Maybe she is listed at UCLA after all. If she has ESRD for seven years (maybe I read that wrong), and was listed at UCLA, she should have had a deceased donor kidney by now.

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In the US, we do not allow people to buy/sell organs for transplant. I guess the goal is to level the field so wealthy people do not have an advantage on obtaining an organ for transplant. Everyone is placed on a “single” list, and priority is primarily determined by accrued wait time. However, we do not limit people’s ability to spend money on a PR campaign to look for a live donor. You can put up banners, create websites, take out full-page ads in the New York Times, or even put up video messages in Time Square. Steve Jobs listed himself at multiple transplant hospitals looking for a pancreas transplant. He was able to do this because he has a private jet and can get to multiple hospitals on short notice. Surely some of these options are out-of-reach of your average patient on transplant waitlists.

I’ll stop now…