Denied Transplant Update

Last week, I wrote about a mentally disabled 15-year-old boy who was being denied a liver transplant because he was in foster care. But today, the Miami Herald reports that he has undergone a transplant after all and is recovering well.

A 15-year-old foster child who was removed from an organ transplant list because he lacked a stable home for recovery quietly received a new liver Sunday at Jackson Memorial Hospital and is recuperating well from the eight-hour procedure. ..."The operation was successful, and [the doctors] are very optimistic," the Department of Children & Families' assistant secretary, George Sheldon, said Monday afternoon.

...Shands officials have declined to discuss the case, citing patient confidentiality. They have said that, in general, it is wrong to "perform an organ transplant on a patient who has a high probability of an unsuccessful outcome," partly because another needy patient would not get the liver.

After The Miami Herald reported on his plight, the teenager was driven by his foster care caseworker to Miami last week so JMH doctors could evaluate whether he was a suitable candidate for a new liver, child welfare administrators said. The surgery was performed unexpectedly when a liver became available Sunday, said Nick Cox, who heads DCF's Tampa Bay region.

"We knew this happened very quickly. I didn't find out until this morning," Cox said Monday.

Great news that he got the transplant. Truly.

But let's be honest here: This "resolution" just raises more questions. Like, if it was such a concern before that he didn't have a guaranteed stable environment for recovery, why was it suddenly not a concern after a newspaper wrote about it? There's no indication that issue was resolved, nor any note that the assessment guidelines were maybe wrong in the first place. Instead it just seems like this kid was whisked off to get a liver to avoid more bad publicity, and without the knowledge of the DCF regional director. (How can his wards best help with his recovery, when they don't even know what's going on?!) The whole thing is just kind of nutty.

I hope that it's taken as an opportunity for the Florida welfare system to reevaluate its whole process, and sinerely fear that it won't be, instead ending up swept under the rug with so many other things just like it.

[H/T to Incertus.]