Dear Life-Link, I am available to fill Victor Bowers Position!
A couple of days back, I posted a message to the Life-Link Message board, which is apparently monitored.
My Post:
I read with dismay the article in the tampa tribune - http://news.tbo.com/news/MGB7NE0LB5E.html
It is unfortunate that Medical Director Victor Bowers is denying a dialysis patient a life saving organ transplant. The fact is cadaveric donations can NEVER meet the demand for organs. Living related and living unrelated will have to make up the difference. Life-Link's website says that they are "dedicated to the recovery and transplantation of an increasing number of high quality organs" Living donors provide the highest quality (survival rate) versus deceased donors. Give the guy his operation.
For the record: I received a kidney transplant in September of 2000 from my mother.
Sincerely,
Lou Lamoureux
Here is the reply:
Topic: transplant denied (2 of 2), Read 10 times New
Conf: OTHER TOPICS
From: Jennifer Krouse jenk@lifelinkfound.org
Date: Friday, February 25, 2005 06:09 PM
Thank you for visiting the LifeLink Message Board. We understand and appreciate your concern. Please be assured that LifeLink HealthCare Institute remains committed to providing quality of life, and life-saving transplants, to as many patients as possible. In fact, we facilitated 375 life saving transplants in 2004 alone. Nearly 70 of those were kidney transplants from living donors.
Naturally, due to federal privacy regulations, we are unable to comment on the specific case to which you refer unless the patient in question chooses to allow us to do so. However, internet access, and having a web site is not a rule out for living donation.
Ruth Bell
Public Relations
The Director of Life-Link had this to say in his rejection letter to Alex Crionas,"An American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) statement on solicitation of donor organs has also been distributed. The ASTS and our transplant program are strongly opposed to the solicitation of organs or organ donors by recipients or their agents through websites." And its clear that the PR Person called in to clean up the mess had this to say: "Having a website is not a rule out for living donation." My question is this, do we believe the guy setting policy or the woman spinning it? That giant whooshing sound you hear is Life-Link retreating.
