Searching For A Fairer Way To Distribute Donor Livers
The nation's organ transplant network is considering changing how livers are distributed. The goal is to make the system fairer, but critics worry patients in poorer rural areas could lose out.
Himanshu Patel ran a convenience store in Georgia until about a year ago, when his liver failure got so bad he had to quit.
"I just couldn't stand up on my feet at all," says Patel, 39, of Waycross, Ga. "I just had to stop working."
Now, he's waiting anxiously to find out if his doctors have found a liver for him so he can undergo a transplant.
"They told me 'You will need a liver transplant — without a liver transplant you might not survive,' " Patel says. Piper Su is waiting, too. She's also 39 but lives about 700 miles north in Alexandria, Va.
