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Ex-con's past wasn't barrier to transplant
Harleeman1030
Member Posts: 1,505 ✭✭✭✭✭
This hits close to home for me My uncle was on list and died before he could get a transplant heart...
Ex-con's past wasn't barrier to transplant. Some wonder why suspect in Louks case got a new heart, but need is the only factor....
~~~~~~~~~~
August 08, 2002 Joseph Nowicki never will be a poster child for transplant
surgery.The 53-year-old Greenwood man, who received a new heart three years
ago at Methodist Hospital, is a convicted murderer. He also has served time
for aggravated assault and robbery.
And even if one were to overlook those crimes as past mistakes -- he was last
released from prison in 1988 -- there's this:Authorities are holding him in
jail on federal firearms violations. Johnson County officials have charged
him with possession of child pornography. Greenwood police consider him a
suspect in the June disappearance of 19-year-old Brookley Louks.His record
alone may make some wonder how Nowicki made it to the top of the transplant
list, receiving a new heart while others didn't. In 1999, an estimated 721
people nationwide died awaiting a heart that never arrived, according to the
United Network for Organ Sharing. "Something's got to be wrong with that,"
said Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner. "This man is a convicted killer.
I'm not sure that's what these people wanted to do when they signed up to be
a donor."Yet, in a backhand way, Nowicki's new heart is startling proof that
the nation's transplant system is working. Desperately needed organs are
being awarded to people on the basis of medical need, not social factors.The
United Network for Organ Sharing is the nation's keeper of the organ waiting
lists. The placement of names on the list is determined by a mathematical
formula, said spokeswoman Anne Pashke.She said the organization is constantly
battling a public perception that celebrities and the rich jump to the front
of the line. "There's always a lot of distrust of the medical system." In
Indiana, about 750 Hoosiers are waiting for a heart, lung, liver or other
organ, said Sam Davis, director of hospital and physician services for the
Indiana Organ Procurement Organization. So when an organ becomes available,
Davis' group enters all the information about the organ into United Network's
computer. Within minutes, the Indiana group receives a list of patients in
order of preference."You start with name number one, and you call that
transplant team," said Davis. At Methodist Hospital, where Nowicki's
operation was performed, spokesman John Mills cited patient confidentiality
in declining to discuss the case. Nowicki's attorney, George "Jay" Hoffman,
said he didn't know whether private insurance or tax dollars paid for the
operation.For Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, a medical ethicist, the issue of
whether an ex-con should be eligible for a transplant is nearly a no-brainer.
"If he's been in jail and paid his dues, why shouldn't he be eligible for an
organ?" she said.Aside from the legal issues, there's a practical reason for
ignoring a person's past, said Ross, an assistant director of the MacLean
Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. "Who would
want to make those social judgments?"About the only time nonmedical factors
could come into play is when the medical team decides whether a patient
should be a transplant candidate. But it would go against most doctors'
training to consider a person's past. "They take a Hippocratic oath, and it
doesn't say anything in there about judging people," Pashke noted.For United
Network and most transplant organizations, nearly all the issues have the
same root: the shortage of organs.No one knows this better than Gary Pryor of
Mooresville, whose brother, Ronald, died July 31, 1999, not quite three weeks
after Nowicki received his new heart.His brother had been on the transplant
list, but when no organs were available and his health deteriorated, he
started a drug treatment that seemed to be working."That's a sad situation,"
Pryor said when told of Nowicki's criminal record and legal problems.
"Somebody else needed that heart rather than him."
Harleeman1030@aol.com
Ex-con's past wasn't barrier to transplant. Some wonder why suspect in Louks case got a new heart, but need is the only factor....
~~~~~~~~~~
August 08, 2002 Joseph Nowicki never will be a poster child for transplant
surgery.The 53-year-old Greenwood man, who received a new heart three years
ago at Methodist Hospital, is a convicted murderer. He also has served time
for aggravated assault and robbery.
And even if one were to overlook those crimes as past mistakes -- he was last
released from prison in 1988 -- there's this:Authorities are holding him in
jail on federal firearms violations. Johnson County officials have charged
him with possession of child pornography. Greenwood police consider him a
suspect in the June disappearance of 19-year-old Brookley Louks.His record
alone may make some wonder how Nowicki made it to the top of the transplant
list, receiving a new heart while others didn't. In 1999, an estimated 721
people nationwide died awaiting a heart that never arrived, according to the
United Network for Organ Sharing. "Something's got to be wrong with that,"
said Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner. "This man is a convicted killer.
I'm not sure that's what these people wanted to do when they signed up to be
a donor."Yet, in a backhand way, Nowicki's new heart is startling proof that
the nation's transplant system is working. Desperately needed organs are
being awarded to people on the basis of medical need, not social factors.The
United Network for Organ Sharing is the nation's keeper of the organ waiting
lists. The placement of names on the list is determined by a mathematical
formula, said spokeswoman Anne Pashke.She said the organization is constantly
battling a public perception that celebrities and the rich jump to the front
of the line. "There's always a lot of distrust of the medical system." In
Indiana, about 750 Hoosiers are waiting for a heart, lung, liver or other
organ, said Sam Davis, director of hospital and physician services for the
Indiana Organ Procurement Organization. So when an organ becomes available,
Davis' group enters all the information about the organ into United Network's
computer. Within minutes, the Indiana group receives a list of patients in
order of preference."You start with name number one, and you call that
transplant team," said Davis. At Methodist Hospital, where Nowicki's
operation was performed, spokesman John Mills cited patient confidentiality
in declining to discuss the case. Nowicki's attorney, George "Jay" Hoffman,
said he didn't know whether private insurance or tax dollars paid for the
operation.For Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, a medical ethicist, the issue of
whether an ex-con should be eligible for a transplant is nearly a no-brainer.
"If he's been in jail and paid his dues, why shouldn't he be eligible for an
organ?" she said.Aside from the legal issues, there's a practical reason for
ignoring a person's past, said Ross, an assistant director of the MacLean
Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. "Who would
want to make those social judgments?"About the only time nonmedical factors
could come into play is when the medical team decides whether a patient
should be a transplant candidate. But it would go against most doctors'
training to consider a person's past. "They take a Hippocratic oath, and it
doesn't say anything in there about judging people," Pashke noted.For United
Network and most transplant organizations, nearly all the issues have the
same root: the shortage of organs.No one knows this better than Gary Pryor of
Mooresville, whose brother, Ronald, died July 31, 1999, not quite three weeks
after Nowicki received his new heart.His brother had been on the transplant
list, but when no organs were available and his health deteriorated, he
started a drug treatment that seemed to be working."That's a sad situation,"
Pryor said when told of Nowicki's criminal record and legal problems.
"Somebody else needed that heart rather than him."
Harleeman1030@aol.com