England liver transplant policy soon to be ours?? Just have to wonder...........

   

Easier transplant rules for alcoholics

Alcoholics who do not show they can stay sober outside hospital are expected to be offered liver transplants for the first time next month.
A group of experts in liver disease will propose the change despite a shortage of organs. Under current guidelines, candidates for new livers have to show they can abstain from drink, usually for six months, before doctors approve a transplant.
The proposed lifting of the ban follows the death in July of Gary Reinbach, 22, from Dagenham, east London. He had severe alcohol-induced liver disease. Reinbach’s doctors believed only a transplant could save him but he was too ill to leave hospital and prove he could stay sober.
A panel of doctors working for the liver advisory group has been swayed by a trial in Lille, northern France, involving 18 alcoholics with liver disease who had not been well enough to show they could remain sober before their transplants.  
There are 268 patients waiting for a liver; 91 died on the waiting list last year.


         With the Health reform bill  and public option still to be voted upon soon, no matter what the opinion of the public is, I found still another angle to consider.  

     In England one of the issues coming to light is liver transplants and who receives them.  They have a shortage and now want alcoholics to be on the list as recipients if they can stay sober and not die before a liver can be found.  Alcoholics are not the issue.    The issue is our government  deciding who and who does not receive a liver or any other life saving organ.  I have questions as to who would be in charge, Czars?  Will there be a cut off if you are over or under a certain age?  Will the color if skin or nationality come in to play.  I only bring these questions up because of the wide range of issues that would be in consideration if some government agency is now in charge of your health care.  These are personal and private issues between doctors and patients, and all will be off the table when the socialized medicine has your health care at heart (or liver).