André Picard, a healthy reporter and columnist with The Globe and Mail, had an interesting story on Saturday. The print story was headlined ‘Giving life, and a bit of liver, to a stranger,’ while online it carried this headline: ‘Meet the Chopped Livers — altruistic Canadians who have donated a part of their livers to strangers to save lives’ . . . The story mostly deals with people who have chosen to donate a piece of their liver to those in need. . . .
Picard’s story included this:
“Given the dire shortage of organs for transplant — there are 3,150 Canadians waiting for a kidney and 527 waiting for a liver — public appeals are on the rise.
“That makes many clinicians and ethicists uncomfortable. They worry that desperately needed organs will go to those with compelling stories rather than those most in need, as illustrated by the case of Eugene Melnyk, the owner of the Ottawa Senators, who received a liver transplant in 2015 after a public appeal.
“More than 500 people offered to donate a part of their liver to Mr. Melnyk, and 20 of them actually continued with the process to become living donors.”
After the response to Melnyk’s appeal in 2015 and the ensuing successful transplant, I sometimes wondered how many of the potential donors had gone ahead even after not being selected to help him. Now I know.
Picard’s story is right here.
We’ll be back next year! Happy New Year!!!
TAKING NOTE 