Opinion: Too many donor organs go to waste. Here’s how to get them into the patients who need them
The discard rate for donor kidneys is more than 20%, meaning thousands go to waste every year.
As I was getting ready to perform a kidney transplant from a deceased donor on a recent Saturday afternoon, my phone rang. When I saw the ID for the organ allocation coordinator, I knew immediately what she would tell me: The other kidney from the same donor had been declined for transplant because the surgeon didn’t like how it flushed. At this point it had been out of the donor for 24 hours, and it was at a transplant center three hours away. If I wanted it, I could take it for anyone on my medical center’s wait list.
My first reaction was frustration. Why was I just hearing about this? By the time I got this kidney back to my center, brought a patient in, and prepared them for transplant, it would be the middle of the night and almost 30 hours after the kidney was removed from the donor. It would be so easy to just decline. Some other surgeon looked at the kidney and decided it was no good. Shouldn’t I just trust that?
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