Liver Transplant Ethics
“Liver transplant ethics: Should alcoholics be sober first? Toronto woman whose husband died in 2010 plans to launch charter challenge”. CBC News. 28 January 2015
This story appeared on the CBC news website, some of the questions and points this article raises are:
•
Should alcoholics be required to abstain from drinking for six months before they
are eligible for a liver transplant in Ontario?
•
Does the six-month abstinence contradict the charter and Canadians’ right to
universal access to health care?
•
Is it ethical to deny a sick person a second chance at life based on their lifestyle
choices?
The author attempts to put a balanced report on this controversial issue by presenting all the possible arguments but I personally felt the author sympathized with Mrs. Selkirk. This report to me reads not as a legal wrangle of what is outlined by the Canadian Charter or not but a much larger argument on ethics - of what is right and wrong. One of the messages that are conveyed through the article is that alcoholism should not be treated as a flaw in one’s character but a medical condition. And therefore people should not make moral judgment calls. This controversial debate has been going on for years, in various countries, whether there is access to free universal health care or not. The question of liver transplants for patients with an ongoing history of alcohol abuse remains more of an ethical issue rather than a medical one.
According to the CBC article titled Liver transplant ethics (2015), Mrs. Selkirk stated, "I believe that if doctors have a patient whose life they can save and they have a donor who's willing to give, that they have an obligation to save their life". Gift of Life Donor Program explains how a match for an organ depends on criteria such as the blood type, size of the organ,
the graveness of the disease and location of the patient from the organ donor. (2015) In Canada, approximately one-third of patients on the waiting list for transplants
This story appeared on the CBC news website, some of the questions and points this article raises are:
•
Should alcoholics be required to abstain from drinking for six months before they
are eligible for a liver transplant in Ontario?
•
Does the six-month abstinence contradict the charter and Canadians’ right to
universal access to health care?
•
Is it ethical to deny a sick person a second chance at life based on their lifestyle
choices?
The author attempts to put a balanced report on this controversial issue by presenting all the possible arguments but I personally felt the author sympathized with Mrs. Selkirk. This report to me reads not as a legal wrangle of what is outlined by the Canadian Charter or not but a much larger argument on ethics - of what is right and wrong. One of the messages that are conveyed through the article is that alcoholism should not be treated as a flaw in one’s character but a medical condition. And therefore people should not make moral judgment calls. This controversial debate has been going on for years, in various countries, whether there is access to free universal health care or not. The question of liver transplants for patients with an ongoing history of alcohol abuse remains more of an ethical issue rather than a medical one.
According to the CBC article titled Liver transplant ethics (2015), Mrs. Selkirk stated, "I believe that if doctors have a patient whose life they can save and they have a donor who's willing to give, that they have an obligation to save their life". Gift of Life Donor Program explains how a match for an organ depends on criteria such as the blood type, size of the organ,
the graveness of the disease and location of the patient from the organ donor. (2015) In Canada, approximately one-third of patients on the waiting list for transplants