The ethics of liver transplants for alcoholics...

Read an article on the front page of the Citizen, about Discovery Health (Bongi's favourite) refusing to fund a liver transplant on what seems like suspicion of alcohol abuse.

So I want to debate transplants. And the ethical eligibility to receive one. Liver transplants spring to mind.

Many conditions cause end-stage liver disease that would then require a liver transplant for survival. Livers are a scarce resource that do not become available everyday. For instance, in the UK, 17000 people are waiting for a liver transplant. If you're lucky, between 50 and 200 become available every year.

So, how do you allocate organs appropriately and fairly?

Do you want to give a liver to a person, who through large consumption of alcohol caused cirrhosis? Or do you want to give it to a child, who through no fault of their own, has biliary atresia. Or to a woman who developed auto immune hepatitis?

Most international guidelines say that for a person who has alcohol-induced liver failure to become eligible for a transplant, they need to have shown a period of abstinence and/or a period of rehabilitation. Usually 6 months.

After this period - does that make them deserving of a liver transplant? Should the guidelines be abolished as people who are alcoholics have a disease "that they are not in control of"? Even if you will continue to drink and destroy your new liver?

Should self-induced liver disease be deserving at all (taking into account the more deserving children and adults out there, who have had no control of the cause of their liver failure)?

What do you think?

Personally, I will tell the Organ Donation Society NOT to give my liver / organs to anybody who has not been substance abuse rehabilitated. Full stop.