Organ Transplant? Only The Privileged Need Apply

Recently, a woman who has been on my prayer list called me with a heavy heart about a painful decision she has to make regarding her health and her chances of survival. “Beth” is in her sixties, has lived through the death of her husband and her only grandchild, and is now locked in a painful and long battle with cancer.

Because Beth lives in a rural Appalachian area, medical care is not readily available. She makes a six-hour drive up to Morgantown every few weeks to receive her chemo treatments. Fortunately she has family in the area that she can stay with since she usually does not feel up to traveling after the treatments.

Recently she was told that she could be placed on a liver-transplant list, but only if she moves to Morgantown. Should she choose to stay in Welch where she has made her life, where her family is, and where her home is, she would not be considered. Beth does not want to move to Morgantown since there is no telling how long she will have to be there before her shot at a transplant comes through. It’s been tough on Beth as she struggles to decide between putting her life on hold to live in the guest room of a relative, or to return home and hope for a medical miracle.

However after I got off the phone with Beth I began to think about many of the people who live in this area. Most of them do not have health care, unless they are on disability and can obtain benefits that way. Even so, they are locked in a black hole of poverty, so traveling long distances to get to the hospital is out of the question. Getting to Morgantown would be impossible. Much less moving to Morgantown.

It’s painfully obvious that organ transplant policies heavily favor the privileged: those who live in wealthier, more developed areas; those who have the means to travel; those who have the means to uproot their lives in order to wait on a transplant. But the poor, the disenfranchised, and the discarded people of rural Appalachia are left out in the cold (as well as many other segments of our society).