Sick Atlanta Teen Kept Off Transplant List

[michmi]

This is why when people cry and wring their hands over calling someone a "bad" person or stating "being born poor or impoverished shouldn't be a death sentence" in this country, I roll my eyes.

Never should have gotten the heart, 1 organ wasted. Nice.

 

[jjenny]

He certainly didn't put that new heart to good use.

 

[SwampMama]

I spent some time on his FB page and there is pic after pic of him holding guns in a pose, him smoking, him displaying wads of cash and references to gangs/gangsigns, selling drugs, friends in prison, etc. Sickening.

Now, take a look at the quote below. It is from this thread, post # 14, dated 08-16-2013 (BBM)

I can, my husband is on the heart transplant list now. He is 27. There are multiple classes you have to take. you have to have family support, make your appointments, and a transplant isnt a cure. just an improvement, but organ transplant involves really expensive anti rejection drugs that with our insurance will cost about 300 a month. without insurance your looking at 1500 a month or more!

Transplantation is not a cure!! I have to stress that. Its another disease. There can be many side effects to the drugs. Skin issues, kidney problems, bladder problems etc. I am against people strong arming the transplantation system.

Then underneath that is Burbqueens signature/tagline. It says:

" Rest in Peace John 08/09/86-04/24/2014.
Husband, father and son. I miss you and so does your son."

How heartbreaking. It looks like a loving Husband/Father did not get that "2nd chance", while Anthony did. How utterly heartbreaking that Anthony decided what he really wanted a 2nd chance to do was to return to a life of crime, smoking weed, burglarizing homes, shooting at 81 year old ladies in their own homes, stealing cars, fleeing from cops in a high speed chase, mowing down an innocent pedestrian before finally causing his own death. Sorry but he completely proved WHY he was completely unworthy of a 2nd chance.

 

[Goose22]

Sending love to his family. I hope they never feel guilty about fighting for his transplant.

 

[noZme]

The same for liver and kidney transplants. If you're an alchoholic who continues to drink, you're not getting one.

I'm so disheartened that somebody else missed the life-saving gift that Anthony Stokes squandered. We have a friend whose son died in an auto accident. She has actually met the recipient of her son's heart, a very appreciative gentleman, a retired teacher, who gets a few more years to see his grandchildren grow up.

I also know someone whose daughter, a young mother of a toddler, died while waiting for a heart. A couple years ago, one of our own Websleuth members lost her beautiful daughter who did not live to get her transplant.

As an potential organ/tissue donor, I would love the option to add a caveat.... first choice for my parts goes to animal lovers, gardeners, artists, etc. Just ranting now, this story makes me very sad.

 

[jjenny]

It's even worse than just squandering a gift. This guy allegedly carjacked someone in the mall, shot at an elderly woman, and injured a pedestrian who is in the hospital. He wouldn't have energy to allegedly do these awful things if he didn't have this new heart.

 

[Yoda]

In the two years Stokes had his donor heart , 697 people died waiting to get one.

http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/roswell/2015/03/31/roswell-pedestrian-burglary/70733978/

 

[K_Z]

I'm absolutely disgusted to the core of my soul that this extremely poor candidate was "racially/ politically" leapfrogged onto the list, and to the top, no less, to get a heart. We're talking about a HEART, not a kidney, FGS.

An absolutely sickening waste of a valuable heart-- and this situation will now negatively affect some people's willingness to be organ donors for themselves or their loved ones. Families of donors want to make sure their loved one's precious gift, given at a time of immense sorrow and crisis for the donor family, is not squandered and wasted on someone like this violent criminal. I forsee more people saying "no" to organ donation because of this horrible story.

He never should have been qualified because of his history and behavior. This demonstrates a complete failure of the qualification process, IMO. It's absolutely shameful that pandering to some idea of "political correctness" resulted in wasting a heart on a criminal, IMO.

The issues here are much bigger and more far reaching than one person. I hate what happened here, on so many levels.

 

[K_Z]

Sending love to his family. I hope they never feel guilty about fighting for his transplant.

Really??? I hope they feel horribly guilty. I hope they never have a good night's sleep for the rest of their lives. I hope they have nightmares about the donor, and the family of the donor, of that heart, coming back to haunt them for what they did. I have not a single shred of compassion for them. They new exactly what the issues were, and they exploited the situation. And they didn't care.

I'll save my compassion for the families of the 700 people who died waiting for a heart, in the 2 years a wasted donor heart beat inside this chest of this criminal .

 

[Supernovae]

Really??? I hope they feel horribly guilty. I hope they never have a good night's sleep for the rest of their lives. I hope they have nightmares about the donor, and the family of the donor, of that heart, coming back to haunt them for what they did. I have not a single shred of compassion for them. They new exactly what the issues were, and they exploited the situation. And they didn't care.

I'll save my compassion for the families of the 700 people who died waiting for a heart, in the 2 years a wasted donor heart beat inside this chest of this criminal .

Come on, she was his mother, what else was she going to do? The "responsibility" if there is such, belongs with cooler heads.

It's a difficult one but, I don't feel able to say whether listing him was the wrong decision, except in hindsight. To me the key questions are: are there specific issues of substance addiction that may effect prognosis (particularly if this is what caused the initial disease process, e.g. liver transplant in an alcoholic) and is there continued non-compliance with medical instructions after diagnosis? The latter may well have been a factor in this case, and the hospital wouldn't have been able to say for confidentiality reasons, although it's likely we'll never know this. In general I'd be against making blanket restrictions based on assumptions about future medical compliance based on past social behaviour, particularly in one so young (I don't know whether I'd feel differently for a much older person), and certainly against making decisions based on a moral assessment of the person's behaviour and lifestyle (Dick Cheney would do pretty badly by this metric in some circles), particularly given how much problems with the law breaks down along class and race lines in US, and many other societies. There's a danger that taken to its logical extreme, you could end up with a situation where organ donation was the preserve of white middle class people who had greater opportunity to live pristine lives (or at least not have their indiscretions end up before a court).

I know that this is a particularly extreme example, but, in general, I'd also be against moralising transplant recipients more than anyone else who's had to have life saving medical treatment, or indeed the next person. It's too much of a burden to place on them the responsibility towards the donor for their future life choices, particularly given that, to be brutally frank, what happened to the donor doesn't change based on what subsequently happened with the organs. Presumably, this donor would have provided multiple organs, the recipients of some of which will still be walking around somewhere, hopefully the donor family can gain comfort from that, if they know who they are.

 

[Hiandmighty]

They said he had ZERO history of compliance before the transplant and hardly any medical records because he never went to any appointments.

Someone will have to find that link... Maybe it is on page 1?

 

[Lulu14]

He should have never gotten the heart.

Who knows who died because they didn't get the heart this punk got?

One of the reasons I am not an organ donor right here.

 

[Opie]

Thanks button was not enough for posts #44 and #48.

Condolences to burbqueen for her loss and that of her family.

 

[jjenny]

Seems like the new heart gave this guy a lot of energy to do things he wouldn't have been able to do (if he wasn't already dead from heart failure). That's quite a lot of alleged criminal activity. And a pedestrian got hit by the car and is in the hospital.

Pedestrian victim was standing on the median waiting to cross the road. Impact send her airborne over the hood of the car.
http://patch.com/georgia/roswell/police-release-report-fatal-accident-involving-burglary-suspect-0

 

[Supernovae]

They said he had ZERO history of compliance before the transplant and hardly any medical records because he never went to any appointments.

Someone will have to find that link... Maybe it is on page 1?

I'm not sure if it was clear whether that was to do with non-compliance or whether he just didn't have much of a medical history to speak of before the serious illness with his heart. With the American medical system being what it is (particularly for most of his lifetime) a lot of people are going to avoid going to the doctor unless they're really sick, simply because they can't afford it. But again, it would be good if someone could provide the link.

 

[Supernovae]

He should have never gotten the heart.

Who knows who died because they didn't get the heart this punk got?

One of the reasons I am not an organ donor right here.

That's a bit unfortunate. You can't have morality tests for organ recipients you just have to accept that, as with any medical treatment, it's an area where the sun shines on the good and the bad alike. It's not like you're going to know the difference if the situation arises. The chances are that any recipient(s) are going to be perfectly blameless, or more likely perfectly ordinary. Denying them that chance on the off chance that an organ goes to someone "unworthy" is a bit of a perverse attitude. The greater problem for people on organ waiting lists is the lack of donors, not this one guy.

In brighter news, doctors are pioneering transplants from hearts that have stopped beating, which should increase the donor pool:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32056350

 

[jjenny]

"DeKalb Police arrested Stokes 11 times between 2010 and 2015, said Capt. Steve Fore. The charges included burglary, auto theft, weapons charges, terroristic threats. He had a burglary and truancy charge in 2010 as well as another burglary charge of a home in December 2012 and he picked up another burglary charge in February 2013, six months before the transplant controversy erupted, Fore said."

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/tragic-path-for-heart-transplant-teen-given-a-seco/nkkSG/

 

[sonjay]

"DeKalb Police arrested Stokes 11 times between 2010 and 2015, said Capt. Steve Fore. The charges included burglary, auto theft, weapons charges, terroristic threats. He had a burglary and truancy charge in 2010 as well as another burglary charge of a home in December 2012 and he picked up another burglary charge in February 2013, six months before the transplant controversy erupted, Fore said."

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/tragic-path-for-heart-transplant-teen-given-a-seco/nkkSG/

What a monumental waste of the most precious gift a human being can receive.

 

[K_Z]

Until heart transplants are as commonplace and ubiquitous as chemotherapy, dialysis, or limb prosthetics, it's my opinion that we should continue to have a rigorous qualification process that includes a thorough evaluation of someone's criminal and social history, that makes assessments and predictions about future compliance based on past behavior. That is the moral way to go about allocating scarce resources, IMO, if we want to talk about morality in the organ distribution system. A criminal lifestyle is a CHOICE. It's not an accident, or a "youthful indiscretion."

Noncompliance is not the same as "no medical history." This teen and this family was noncompliant, probably worsening his condition much faster because of their noncompliance. The committee evaluated an extended period of noncompliance from the time of initial presentation, right up to the day they considered whether he should be on the transplant list. Part of that consideration includes what was offered to the family in the way of support, transportation to appointments, options for schooling, etc, and how they participated with various plans for his care. The FAMILY was non-compliant. They wanted a "quick fix", and were unable to properly consider the implications of his original illness, or what the transplant would mean long term, IMO.

Believe it or not, a heart transplant is an elective procedure. Even hip and knee replacement patients have a long list of requirements and education to fulfill before being approved.

I stand by what I said earlier. This teen was a terrible candidate for this transplant. The committee was right the first time around. The very scarce organ was a complete waste on this individual-- for which he and his family probably never paid a single penny toward his care-- so this story is NOT about "poor people being denied expensive care." Not only that, he continued to go on hurting a lot of other people, and committing crimes.

Are we now going to give heart transplants to death row inmates?? Because this situation was just about that ridiculous, IMO. The only place this teen would have had a chance to be compliant with his post transplant regimen is if he was incarcerated in a prison hospital ward, because turning him loose back to the streets of his violent urban neighborhood with a new heart and a few bottles of pills guaranteed failure for him, and his crime victims.

The qualification process for this teen was a complete failure, IMO, and should not be so easily influenced by those able to muster up activists to fan the flames of race-based "faux outrage", or whip up social media publicity. That is the real issue-- the corruption within the organ distribution process that permits exploitation of the system for those able to figure out how to manipulate.

The Murnaghan case is another case of extreme manipulation of the system, but it's a "success" (she is now 12 and off the vent), but at what cost?

 

[K_Z]

You can't have morality tests for organ recipients you just have to accept that, as with any medical treatment, it's an area where the sun shines on the good and the bad alike.

Snipped.

Why not? A heart transplant is not an "entitlement."

That seems to be a huge problem for a lot of people in our society today-- a lot of people thinks they are "entitled" to a lot of things without any effort, or any responsibility, on their part.