Should elderly patients receive liver transplants? Mrs. Burgone's case

¶ … Patient over Seventy Years of Age be given a Liver Transplant?

The woman in question, Mrs. Burgone, needs a liver transplant and has the money to pay for one (they are extremely expensive, costing up to $200,000). However her doctor tells her that "social policy" prevents doctors from conducting liver transplant operations on people 70 years of age or over. Mrs. Burgone argues that she can pay for it herself, to no avail. Then the doctor offers a rather strange justification for his position. He claims that if one older person is given permission to have a transplant -- even if she can afford it -- then "society would have to pay for those who can't afford it, and society can't afford to do that," he argued. That is a strange logic, because in the first place if there is a guideline against anyone 70 or older receiving a liver transplant then that rule should remain in place, no matter whether it is on the taxpayers' dime or the person can pay for it herself. The doctor would have been smarter to just say there are data that show older people are at greater risk than younger people, if that was in fact true.

The Argument -- She Shouldn't be Given a Transplant

For the doctor, he actually had a series of good arguments to use in reply to Mrs. Burgone's wishes to have a liver transplant. For example, professor Paul Flaman of St. Joseph's College at the University of Alberta states that "… a widely used and approved criterion of selection is to give priority to those who have a great need and who are expected to benefit greatly" (www.ualberta.ca). What is Mrs. Burgone's real need? Is she desperately hanging on to life and needs one urgently? Readers don't know that. She does she it is unfair to "condemn someone to pain and a greater risk of death when a way of changing this is available." Also, Flaman writes that ethically, it doesn't make sense to give "a limited number of available" number of organs to those & #8230;. Who are expected to only live marginally longer but suffer much with the transplants, when others would benefit greatly" (Flaman, p. 7). Also, the doctor could have pointed out there is a long list of potential recipients that have been waiting for years, so why would Mrs. Burgone be quickly given a liver when 83 people who truly need a liver -- and have waited years -- to survive are on a list ahead of her? These are all reasons why Mrs. Burgone should be told it is not possible for her to get a liver transplant at this time.

Conclusion

The fact that Mrs. Burgone had the money to pay for her liver transplant is irrelevant to this matter. It seems as though she was pushing her agenda because of finances available. She needs to get in line behind all the others that are waiting for a liver. The moral principle that can be embraced here is from Immanuel Kant: "Everyone is obligated to act only in ways that respect the human dignity and moral rights of all persons." All those people who have waited from 3 months to 2 years have moral rights to fight for their health, and Mrs. Burgone should respect those others.