Posted on 06/04/2013 6:35:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Portrait of a bureaucratic nightmare: A little girl’s dying from cystic fibrosis and has three to five weeks to live unless she gets a lung transplant before then. The good news is that adult lungs can be modified for a child her age in a way that’ll save her life — except that, because she’s only 10, she’s not eligible for them. The “adult” list starts at 12; everyone younger than that goes to the children’s list, where lungs are much harder to come by. The question is, does Sebelius have the authority to suspend those age limitations and make the girl, Sarah Murnaghan, eligible for an adult transplant?
I honestly don’t know the answer. Murnaghan’s parents say Sebelius’s authority is clear; Sebelius herself claims that HHS’s lawyers have told her she can’t do it. A life hangs in the balance. On one side:
[U]nder existing policy all adults in the region with her blood type will be offered the lungs first, her parents say, even those more stable and with less severe conditions. The girl’s parents called for a change in the policy after their appeal was denied…
United Network for Organ Sharing, also a nonprofit under contract with the government, said a committee would review the policy and the public would have a chance to comment on any proposed changes. But spokeswoman Anne Paschke said any changes most likely won’t come quickly enough to benefit Sarah or others like her.
“The policy development process is not fast,” she said in an email to The Associated Press. “Organ allocation policies are created to transplant as many people as possible overall, result in the fewest waiting list deaths overall and result in the best possible survival overall. In developing policies, committees and the board weigh data, medical evidence and experience, and public input.”
On the other:
Dr. Stuart Sweet from St. Louis Children’s Hospital, who helped write the pediatric transplant system, said the case ‘tugs at his heart’ but that no system is perfect.
He said that if he changed the system for Sarah’s advantage, ‘there’s another patient, very likely an adolescent, who gets a disadvantage‘.
That’s the key question, right? If you waive the rules and bump her up the adult list, does someone else die because they’re forced to keep waiting? And the other question is, why is someone on the children’s list if a modified adult lung would save them? I don’t understand offhand using a fixed age cutoff instead of a qualitative assessment of each patient to maximize their odds of a transplant. If an adult organ would work for her and there are more adult organs to be had, that’s the list she should be on. Sebelius herself seems sufficiently troubled by this to have ordered a review of transplant protocols.
I’m flagging this for you now just because, with the attention paid to it by GOP congressmen in today’s hearing (Tom Price pressed Sebelius on it too) and with Drudge picking it up this afternoon, there’s a chance it’s going to be blow up in the media in the next few days. Now you’re caught up on the background. And no matter what happens, Ace is right that having the head of HHS telling Congress “someone lives and someone dies” is poisonous optics with the public already sour on ObamaCare. Good luck with your 2014 strategy, Democrats.
It is not the government that says no, it is the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. They set the policy on ages. Her doctors want to go ahead if an adult lung becomes available. However, the procedure comes with more risk than if implanted into an adult because the lung must be shaved down in size.
Nothing. Might doesn't matter. She is about to die now. May doesn't matter either, because they also may not. It seems to me the person closest to death's door is the person who needs it most.
"What basis are you using to determine that the minutes for this family more valuable than other families?"
I am using the basis that she has few minutes left if nothing is done.
If there are other patients as close to death as she is, then they would need to be considered too, but I think telling her family that she doesn't qualify because she is too young is nonsense.
How did it become federal regulation though? To me the government being involved is a huge problem.
It should only be doctors involved. Government has no business here.
It sounds almost like Sebelius is saying “well, if I am compassionate here, then the whole country will be begging me to be compassionate and that will Never Ever Do!”
What is the difference between these bureaucratic robots and executioners?
Can we as a nation afford compassion whether by a Democrat or a Republican public official any more?
I think we cannot..
It’s what happens when you have the “wrong” person in charge of something like this - if you follow my drift. Job description should require someone able to make a decision without having to consult the damn manual.
Well her arbitrariness (I don’t think it is being asked that a lung an adult actually CAN use will be given to the child) is bothersome even while wondering how she got put in the spot. She’s in it, now if there’s a lung the child can use that an adult can’t, do the right thing already lady.
We’re so GD broke, an operation for one little 12 yo girl isn’t going to make one iota bit of difference. You find a lung, we’ll get the money. I’m ready to contribute! Bet thousands of others are as well!!
If the rule (albeit a sucky rule that should be broken when some kid’s life is on the line) was in place in 2005, doesn’t that pre-date the “death panels” thing?
Govt is responsible for limiting health care resources. There’s no good reason why this child is being denied the chance to survive.
You probably aren't serious, but to my personal knowledge Bloomberg does sometimes pay for expensive medical care for people who can't afford it. Might be worth a shot.
Hey, Butterdezillion. Betcha’ she could get a Hawaiian birth certificate stating that she’s the right age!
Back then, children could not handle an adult lung in their body...now they can with new technology. But the "rules" can't be broken for just one ten year old..so says her executioner.
Well look at the scenario I am speaking of: lung appears, matches are done, it will match the child, it will not match any adult needing it. So in your book the proper and right thing is: throw it away. In the larger picture the docs and legislators and whatever should fix this partition between the adults and children where a cross-adaptation is feasible. But there is such a thing as standing so firm on “principle” that you become an ass.
“There’s no good reason why this child is being denied the chance to survive”
Fraid there is its called economics..look it up
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