A cystic fibrosis patient has died of pneumonia after receiving the lungs of a smoker in a transplant operation. An ex-smoker, obviously, since it is not possible to smoke after you have died - unless you are cremated.
The family are distraught and upset, and have been quoted as saying that if their loved one knew where the lungs had come from she would have refused them.
Let's just get a couple of things straight here.
An organ transplant is always a last resort, it is a "life-saving" operation by definition. if the patient survives the transplant they will have an indeterminate life span, but their life will certainly be longer than if they didn't have the transplant at all. 20% of patients receiving a lung transplant still die in the first year, with approx. 43% surviving into their 5th year. It's a dangerous and tricky business receiving a transplanted organ.
What this tragic girls' family are basically saying here is that their daughter would rather have died than receive the lungs of a smoker. An organ transplant is an expensive and time-consuming operation: the surgeons and doctors want the patient to recover and have a decent quality of life, or it's a waste of time for everyone concerned. Thus, the donor organs get checked over - it's not any old offal that gets slung into a patient just to stop them whingeing.
I'm afraid what it boils down to is that those damn healthy people with nothing wrong with them JUST WON'T DIE. Not in the numbers needed by transplant teams - and even then there's no guarantee that perfectly healthy organs won't get rejected by the patient's body after transplant.
This patient received five extra months of life that she certainly wouldn't have had otherwise. The quality of the life is what is really being debated here: was it worth it when she only got five months? Unfortunately none of us have a crystal ball, not even scientific doctors and surgeons who give the impression that they do know everything.
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