California Focus: Illegal immigrant myths extend to organ transplants

The Sentinel | Thomas Elias

The unproven, unprovable but persistent myth that undocumented immigrants are a vast financial burden on the American taxpayer is now extending to the unlikely field of organ transplants.

The latest furor began when about 40 persons, many undocumented, picketed a Chicago hospital in late summer demanding the government finance organ transplants for illegal immigrants, as it often does for others. Some were on a hunger strike, promising to persist on water and Gatorade until they are placed on the waiting list for organs like kidneys and livers.

So far, this demonstration has not been duplicated in California. But the issue of transplants for the undocumented arrived here early last year with the case of Jesus Navarro, who did not receive a kidney transplant set to go to him because at the last moment, doctors at the University of California’s San Francisco Medical Center learned his immigration status.

Navarro eventually got a transplant, but it was not paid for with government funds. That didn’t remove all the controversy, though.

“Why should an American citizen lose out on a transplant to someone in the country illegally?” asked the conservative blog Natural News, speaking for many.

One response might be that contrary to urban legend, undocumented immigrants donate a lot more organs for transplant than they will ever use as long as they can’t legally enter programs like Medicare (which covers all eligible patients in kidney failure starting shortly after they begin dialysis treatments) and Medi-Cal, the California form of Medicaid.

Asked the other day what the effect on organ donation might be if it became widely known that unauthorized immigrants can be wait-listed for organs and eventually receive them if financially qualified, the head of California’s largest organ procurement organization took a different tack.

“I worry far more about any group saying ‘If we can’t get transplants, why should we ever donate,’” said Thomas Mone, chief executive of Los Angeles-based OneLegacy, which arranges distribution of organs donated by the families of accident victims and others who die, but have reusable hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, corneas and other tissues.

“We certainly don’t ask any prospective donors their immigration status when we’re asking them to donate,” he said. “It’s not pertinent medically and it could scare them off quickly. But we know about 10 percent of the population here is undocumented. And we know about 51 percent of our donors are Latino. So we estimate that about 50 of our approximately 450 donated organs each year come from the undocumented. We know for sure that 65 percent of Latino families who are asked to donate the organs of a deceased relative actually do it.”
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor TODAY
In California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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