A dying woman has been denied a partial liver transplant offered by her own partner for drinking while on the waiting list.
Amanda Husk, 36, has been on life support for three months waiting for her much-needed organ.
But he was denied a transplant after doctors discovered the alcoholic had relapsed before being admitted to hospital.
Now his devastated loved ones have been told he only has weeks to live, even though Husk agreed to enter an addiction program once he got his new liver.
“This was a wake-up call for her, she wanted to take advantage of every advantage and opportunity to make sure she could receive this transplant and change her life,” said her partner Nathan Allen. CTV News.
Amanda Husk was denied a liver transplant for drinking while on the waiting list.
The 36-year-old has been on life support for three months waiting to receive the much-needed organ.
Allen had offered to be a donor because he has a compatible blood type.
However, doctors at University Health Network in Ontario rejected the transplant request, citing “minimal out-of-hospital abstinence.”
Allen’s next course of action is to try to take Husk to Europe, where a transplant would be possible, but he fears she won’t survive that long.
“Last week they told us he has a couple weeks to live, maybe a month if he’s really lucky,” Allen said, explaining that treatment could cost $300,000.
“I will do everything I can to save his life, just as the medical profession here should do.”
Husk began drinking as a teenager and struggled to control his addiction.
The heartbreaking case has raised ethical questions around addiction treatment.
Currently, about 600 people are waiting for a liver transplant for various reasons. About one in ten people who receive a transplant for alcoholic liver disease return to drinking.
Debra Selkirk, whose husband Mark died in 2010 after being denied a liver transplant because of his drinking, criticized the decision.
Allen had offered to be a donor because he has a compatible blood type.
However, doctors at University Health Network in Ontario rejected the transplant request, citing “minimal out-of-hospital abstinence.”
Allen now wants to transport Husk to Europe for a transplant, but fears he won’t survive that long.
Her partner, Nathan Allen, said she had agreed to join an addiction program after receiving the transplant, but was still denied.
“A life-saving procedure is based on perceived bad behavior,” he said.
‘People aren’t turned away because they didn’t exercise, because they work too much, because they don’t get enough sleep, or because they didn’t follow doctor’s orders.
‘So in Nathan and Amanda’s case, you see someone being told, ‘You didn’t follow the doctor’s orders, so we’re not going to help you.’ We’re going to let you die,’ she said.
Selkirk campaigns for greater compassion for those suffering from liver failure caused by alcohol abuse.
Dr. Saumya Jayakumar, an Edmonton liver transplant surgeon who was not involved in Husk’s case, explained that the criteria for transplants tend to be fairly uniform across Canada.
‘It is a precious gift. “It’s a limited resource,” he stated. ‘As you can imagine, making these decisions can cause a significant amount of moral distress to team members.
“We can give you a new liver, but if we can’t change all the circumstances that led to liver failure, have we really done you a service?” she said.
“I would say that all transplant centers in Canada are struggling both with accessing funding for patients’ mental health and with access to mental health professionals for transplant programs.” she said.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in 2022 there were more than 45,000 deaths from liver disease in the US due to alcohol.
About 29,000 of the deaths were men, while the remaining 16,000 were women.
Husk began drinking as a teenager and battled addiction into adulthood.
Their plight has raised ethical questions about the treatment of people with addiction problems.
Alcoholic liver disease has generally affected more men than women; However, rates among women are increasing in line with more women drinking than before.
The disease, which causes abdominal pain, fatigue and jaundice, among other symptoms, has a higher risk of mortality in women.
Researchers at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and their colleagues found that women with alcohol-related steatotic liver disease have nearly twice the risk of dying in a given period of time than men with the same condition.
Doctors believe this may be because women produce less of the alcohol-destroying enzyme than men and generally have lower body mass and water content.
‘We cannot comment on specific cases due to patient privacy, but we can say that there are multiple criteria for living donor eligibility, only two of which are blood type and willingness. Criteria for recipients are governed jointly by the transplant centers and Trillium Gift of Life Network,” UHN officials said.