Florida Foster Child Denied Liver Transplant

[Grainne Dhu]

This case doesn't necessarily seem to be about the lack of organs available, but the costs that the state will have to put out for the boy's care since they don't feel that he will have anyone to take care of him afterwards.

Indirectly, that is affected by the shortage of organs. Part of the reason why transplants are so expensive is because of the scarcity. People have to be practically dead before they can even get on a transplant list, which means the cost of their care, pre and post transplant is extremely high. If there were more organs available, healthier people could get transplants, their care would be cheaper, etc.

Plus, there's the implied "waste" if the transplant fails. There are so few organs that each transplant is considered a waste of resources if it doesn't succeed beyond the personal tragedy aspect. Each failed transplant now represents the death of two people (the person who got the transplant and the person who did not get the transplant). If there were ample organs available, a transplant failure would only be a personal tragedy that involved that one patient and no others.