Froedtert Hospital, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Donor Network are joining with other medical centers and organ transplant programs in Wisconsin and around the country to halt a proposal officials say could send transplant organs out of state.
Under the federal proposal, patients in Wisconsin who need a liver transplant would have to compete against transplant candidates in Illinois and Minnesota for donor organs. Under the existing rules, the neediest and most appropriate patient in the state receives the donor organ.
About 75 percent of organs donated in Wisconsin stay in Wisconsin. Under the proposed system, less than 40 percent of livers donated in Wisconsin would stay in Wisconsin, the donor network and hospitals say.
“In addition to the adverse effect on Wisconsin patients who need a liver transplant, there is the very real likelihood that organ donations in Wisconsin will decline if donors and their families believe their organs will no longer stay in the local community,” Jay Campbell, director of the Wisconsin Donor Network, said in a statement. “These are not risks that we can afford to take in matters of life and death.”
The donor network and the hospital systems have joined the National Organ Transplant Access Coalition for states at risk of this legislation.
The group is pressing the United Network of Organ Sharing, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Congressional leaders to put the proposal on hold while the impact on Wisconsin and similarly situated states is more thoroughly considered, and until more evidence of potential benefits of the proposal can be generated.
Hospital systems are asking patients, donor families and other concerned members of the community to voice their opposition to the proposal by April 24 at www.notacoalition.org.
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