Ethics Governance
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| Article - Abstract. To view full article click on the article title. | |
CBHD: Liver Transplants by Gregory W. Rutecki With a scarce, non-renewable resource such as livers for transplantation, shouldn’t the individuals who receive organs be the persons who need them most? If recipients could be selected based on need, allocation finally could be divorced from onerous criteria such as social value. Since need in this context can be equated with death (if life-saving treatment is withheld), the manner in which recipients are chosen becomes paramount. On an existential level, the question may be reduced simply to choosing who should live when not all can. This hard reality is simply a case of demand far outstripping supply. There has been and continues to be a scarcity of donated livers. In fact, nearly 17,000 patients were waiting for one in 2002 (up from 1,676 a decade earlier), while only 5,000 livers were donated that year. As sick as those in need have been, their average wait has increased from 65 to 795 days over ten years! Without a liver, these people die at a rate estimated to be 10% (approximately 1,300 individuals) per year. Addressing justice in life-and-death allocation decisions calls for a frank evaluation of the ethical criteria applied. Considerations include durable concepts, both positive and negative, such as “first come--first served,” medical benefit, social value, progress of science, and favored groups. Full Article: http://www.cbhd.org/resources/healthcare/rutecki_2004-06-25.htm |
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2006 Ethics-Governance.com |
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