Man refused liver transplant dies (Welcome to socialized medicine)

BBC News ^ | July 20, 2009 | BBC

[jerod]

A man from east London who began binge-drinking at 13 has died after being denied a life-saving liver transplant.

Gary Reinbach, 22, from Dagenham, was given only a few weeks to live after developing cirrhosis of the liver.

He was admitted to University College Hospital London (UCL) with alcohol damage for the first time 10 weeks ago.

But health chiefs ruled he should not be exempt from strict organ donation criteria which require an alcohol-free period of at least six months....

[jerod]

So this very young man obviously didn't meet the criteria requirement.... If only he had lived another 16 weeks... He would've been golden.

I hope he had a stiff one before he kicked it.

[Cicero]

I guess Hitler would have said that he was a “useless eater.”

[ClearCase_guy]

I like a system where you get the level of medical care for which you have paid. If the medical care is "free" then it will necessarily be rationed. And if you have to deprive someone of a liver transplant, then the binge drinker who blew out his first liver at age 22 seems like a reasonable place to draw the line, if a line must be drawn.

[sickoflibs]

entertaining but is there a moral to this story? Dont drink yourself to death in England?

[Crazieman]

Thats not socialized medicine. We won’t even give livers to heavy drinkers.

They’re in universal short supply. Socialized or not.

[jiggyboy]

In fact this is the CORRECT way to ration healthcare.

[Conscience of a Conservative]

This has nothing to do with socialized medicine - the same thing would have happened here. Transplant organs are in very short supply, and transplant patients are prioritized in any system, socialized or not. Transplant clinics (and insurance companies) here in the U.S. generally will not perform (or pay for) liver transplants without a period of sobriety of 6 months to a year (and many locations/insurers will not perform/cover any liver transplant that results from alcohol abuse.

[pgkdan]

Where do you draw the line? New livers don’t grow on trees. If he were given a liver someone else wouldn’t have. A 22 year old who has already killed one liver with alcohol wouldn’t be at the top of my list. I’d insist that he get any other level of care but transplants are different.

[KarlInOhio]

The flip side of the question is whether someone else should have died without a liver transplant to give this lush one. Unlike MRI machines or hospitals (if you don't have enough then build more) transplant organs are rationed because of the number of usable ones donated. If two people need them now and there is only one, someone has to ration it one some criteria whether by expected survival, immediate need, cash bidding, or a scalpel duel in the operating room where two walk in and one is wheeled out with a new liver.

[Zeddicus]

+1. I don’t see this as a “socialized medicine” issue. A 22-year-old who willfully trashes his own liver ought to be at the abolsolute bottom of the transplant list, regardless of who’s paying for it.

[null and void]

And if you have to deprive someone of a liver transplant, then the binge drinker who blew out his first liver at age 22 seems like a reasonable place to draw the line, if a line must be drawn.

Triage.

[stephenjohnbanker]

If you don’t live your life the way big brother says you must, you die.

[null and void]

Where on earth could you get enough livers for their socialized medical program.

Death row, China.

Good tissue type match guaranteed...

[denydenydeny]

In fairness, these are normal criteria for organ transplants, not particularly different from the ones we have in place here in the USA or any other developed country.

[rtbwood]

Excuse me, but why should a guy who drank himself to death and destroyed his liver by binge drinking be given preferential treatment over someone who has liver disease through no fault of their own? The problem is that there are just so many livers out there available and this man should not be allowed the privilege to gain another liver before someone else who didn’t drink. Also, who’s to say he wouldn’t destroy this new transplanted liver if he didn’t change his behavior?

[sickoflibs]

It sounded like the article was saying this drinker was a victim of socialized medicine.

[The Great RJ]

I knew a nephrologist who left medical practice in the UK who used to tell his colleagues in the US that socialized medicine will mean rationing of kidney dialysis. In the UK the number of dialysis machines was strictly limited and doctors had to make decisions as to who would get treatment and who would die of kidney failure.

[Ramius]

Even if he started drinking at 13, it seems unlikely that cirrosis would develop far enough to kill him by 22. That’s pretty fast. The quantities of alcohol would have to be completely off the chart. Even then, I wonder if there was something else going on.

[Dan Middleton]

Terrible example to use for the case against socialized medicine. This guy essentially killed himself, and there are strict standards for organ donation in our system as well because there’s a limited supply of organs.