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Four states devise organ-sharing plan
Posted
8-30-99 Minneapolis. A proposal by four Midwestern states to share scarce human organs needed for transplant operations could mark the beginning of similar efforts around the country, a leading transplant authority says. The proposed plan linking Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota "might be just the beginning of organ-allocation proposals from various areas of the country," said William Payne, MD, president of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the agency that runs the nation's transplant system. The states are seeking the agency's approval for the agreement, which would allow them to share the supply of livers, one of the most badly needed organs. The deal also calls for reciprocity so that no one state gets shortchanged on transplants. Currently, the nation's 64,000 patients in need of transplanted livers, hearts, kidneys, and other organs are at the mercy of conflicts between states and transplant centers competing for a limited supply of organs. Donated organs are offered outside the local area only if a local recipient cannot be found. UNOS issued new policies Aug. 16 under which states in its 11 regions should offer donated livers to critically ill patients in neighboring states before offering them to less-ill local patients. The Midwestern network proposal came after the four states were unable to reach an agreement on the new rules with their regional neighbor, Illinois, which has nearly 10 percent of the nation's transplant patients and resists sending organs outside the state. The matter of who shares what with whom won't solve the larger problem, which is too few organs to go around, Payne said. "It's a shame that so much time and effort is spent trying to fine-tune the allocation of organs," he said. "The real problem is a shortage of organs. People should spend more of their energy dealing with that, no matter what state they live in." Last year, 4,300 people died while waiting on organ donation lists, and that number is expected to climb by 500 this year, according to UNOS.
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