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As a young Indigenous advocate fights for her life in an Ottawa hospital room, her friends and family are fighting a system that has ruled she does not qualify for a potentially life-saving liver transplant.
The apparent reason she doesn’t qualify? Delilah Saunders has had alcohol in the past six months.
Saunders, who received Amnesty International’s ambassador of conscience award this year for work on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, went to the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital on Friday with severe abdominal pain. She was diagnosed with acute liver failure, likely brought on by taking too much acetaminophen for wisdom tooth pain, according to her family.
Saunders’ mother, Marian, said a physician told her Tylenol poisoning caused her daughter’s liver failure. She said she was also told her daughter wasn’t a candidate for a liver transplant because she had been drinking during the past six months.
It’s something that her family has kept from Saunders, who is listed in critical condition and is in and out of consciousness. “Delilah doesn’t know she has been refused a transplant,” said her aunt, Barbara Coffey.
Coffey said doctors at The Ottawa Hospital, which does not perform liver transplants, contacted transplant centres in Toronto, London, Ontario and Montreal, but they refused to accept the young woman as a transplant candidate. Saunders has fought addictions in the past, say family members, although acetaminophen appears to be the direct factor in her liver failure.
Family members are travelling from across Eastern Canada to be at the young Inuk woman’s bedside, Coffey said.
Saunders’ health crisis comes three years after the high-profile murder of her older sister, Loretta, a masters student in Halifax who was working on a thesis about missing and murdered Indigenous women at the time. Delilah Saunders became an outspoken advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women after her 26-year-old sister’s death, something that hit her hard, say family members, who describe it as a factor in her battle with addictions.
Saunders’ condition, and the refusal from transplant centres, comes as a blow to the family still dealing with her older sister’s death.
“Loretta was murdered, there was no choice,” said Coffey, speaking through tears. “Delilah could be saved. But she might die because she has a history of addictions.”
Aunt Barbara Coffey, left, Mother Miriam Saunders., brother Garrett Saunders, and father Clayton Saunders.
The Saunders family is meeting with lawyers and wants to file an injunction against the so-called six-month rule for liver transplants — which requires six months of abstinence from alcohol for a person to be considered for a transplant. To add to the family’s frustration, that rule is due to be temporarily lifted next summer by the Trillium Gift of Life Network. That pilot project comes after a legal challenge by a Toronto-area widow whose husband died while waiting for a liver transplant.
That widow, Debra Selkirk, has been in touch with Saunders’ family. Selkirk said Thursday she believes Saunders would be on top of the list as a candidate for a liver transplant if not for the six-month rule, which Selkirk argues is unscientific, unfair and unconstitutional.
“I believe that if this rule was not in place, they would have medevacked her to Toronto immediately for transplant.
“Don’t let her die,” Selkirk said. “Transplant her today.”
Saunders’ case brings into sharp relief some of the ethical questions involved in decisions about how a limited supply of donor organs are doled out.
Every week, 1.5 patients die on waiting lists for livers at Toronto’s University Health Networks, one of the biggest liver transplant centres in North America. Officials there are beginning the pilot project next year in an effort to find a fairer means of determining which patients are more likely to do better after a transplant, including continuing to abstain from alcohol, said transplant hepatologist Dr. Les Lilly. He said transplant officials are going to try using a more “global assessment of (a patient’s) real risk of relapse to alcohol.” Until then, he said, transplant centres are tied to the written six-month rule — something Saunders’ family says it will fight.
In a statement, Trillium Gift of Life Network said the so-called six-month rule is based on expert advice and is commonly used in Canada and around the world. “However, this does not prevent a health-care provider from referring a patient to a transplant program, nor does it prevent a patient from receiving a consultation by a transplant program. Once a referral is made, the transplant program undertakes an assessment on whether the patient meets the listing criteria for placement on the transplant wait list.”
The three-year pilot program will determine if there is an “evidence-based basis” to change the rule.
Selkirk said the six-month sobriety rule is based on faulty assumptions that people who have not been able to abstain from alcohol for six months do not do well when they receive a new liver and that many return to drinking. Selkirk said research does not support that, but shows the opposite, that those who have not abstained do well after liver transplants and that few return to drinking.
Six-month sobriety rules are common around the world. But some see the rule as outdated and based on poor public perception of alcohol addiction.
Selkirk’s husband was unable to get a liver transplant, even though she volunteered to donate a piece of her own liver. She said she has seen others, including a young man whose liver was damaged from acetaminophen, who have died while waiting the six months.
Lilly of Toronto’s United Health Network said there is still a big gap between supply and demand of livers for transplant, which is why is it crucial to determine which candidates are most likely to have successful transplants. “We are the marshals of a very scarce resource. The major message is that the supply still comes nowhere close to meeting the demand.”
Saunders’ family, meanwhile, say they they are determined to do everything they can to fight for her life — including challenging the sobriety rule.
Coffey said Thursday the family had retained a lawyer and was getting advice from Amnesty International, “which sees this as a human rights issues.”
Earlier this year, Saunders was interviewed in Teen Vogue magazine by musician Alicia Keys, who also received an Amnesty International award. A friend said the family was trying to contact her for support.
Her friends and family have set up a website at www.helpdelilah.com.
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
The apparent reason she doesn’t qualify? Delilah Saunders has had alcohol in the past six months.
Saunders, who received Amnesty International’s ambassador of conscience award this year for work on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, went to the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital on Friday with severe abdominal pain. She was diagnosed with acute liver failure, likely brought on by taking too much acetaminophen for wisdom tooth pain, according to her family.
Saunders’ mother, Marian, said a physician told her Tylenol poisoning caused her daughter’s liver failure. She said she was also told her daughter wasn’t a candidate for a liver transplant because she had been drinking during the past six months.
It’s something that her family has kept from Saunders, who is listed in critical condition and is in and out of consciousness. “Delilah doesn’t know she has been refused a transplant,” said her aunt, Barbara Coffey.
Coffey said doctors at The Ottawa Hospital, which does not perform liver transplants, contacted transplant centres in Toronto, London, Ontario and Montreal, but they refused to accept the young woman as a transplant candidate. Saunders has fought addictions in the past, say family members, although acetaminophen appears to be the direct factor in her liver failure.
Family members are travelling from across Eastern Canada to be at the young Inuk woman’s bedside, Coffey said.
Saunders’ health crisis comes three years after the high-profile murder of her older sister, Loretta, a masters student in Halifax who was working on a thesis about missing and murdered Indigenous women at the time. Delilah Saunders became an outspoken advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women after her 26-year-old sister’s death, something that hit her hard, say family members, who describe it as a factor in her battle with addictions.
Saunders’ condition, and the refusal from transplant centres, comes as a blow to the family still dealing with her older sister’s death.
“Loretta was murdered, there was no choice,” said Coffey, speaking through tears. “Delilah could be saved. But she might die because she has a history of addictions.”
Aunt Barbara Coffey, left, Mother Miriam Saunders., brother Garrett Saunders, and father Clayton Saunders.
The Saunders family is meeting with lawyers and wants to file an injunction against the so-called six-month rule for liver transplants — which requires six months of abstinence from alcohol for a person to be considered for a transplant. To add to the family’s frustration, that rule is due to be temporarily lifted next summer by the Trillium Gift of Life Network. That pilot project comes after a legal challenge by a Toronto-area widow whose husband died while waiting for a liver transplant.
That widow, Debra Selkirk, has been in touch with Saunders’ family. Selkirk said Thursday she believes Saunders would be on top of the list as a candidate for a liver transplant if not for the six-month rule, which Selkirk argues is unscientific, unfair and unconstitutional.
“I believe that if this rule was not in place, they would have medevacked her to Toronto immediately for transplant.
“Don’t let her die,” Selkirk said. “Transplant her today.”
Saunders’ case brings into sharp relief some of the ethical questions involved in decisions about how a limited supply of donor organs are doled out.
Every week, 1.5 patients die on waiting lists for livers at Toronto’s University Health Networks, one of the biggest liver transplant centres in North America. Officials there are beginning the pilot project next year in an effort to find a fairer means of determining which patients are more likely to do better after a transplant, including continuing to abstain from alcohol, said transplant hepatologist Dr. Les Lilly. He said transplant officials are going to try using a more “global assessment of (a patient’s) real risk of relapse to alcohol.” Until then, he said, transplant centres are tied to the written six-month rule — something Saunders’ family says it will fight.
In a statement, Trillium Gift of Life Network said the so-called six-month rule is based on expert advice and is commonly used in Canada and around the world. “However, this does not prevent a health-care provider from referring a patient to a transplant program, nor does it prevent a patient from receiving a consultation by a transplant program. Once a referral is made, the transplant program undertakes an assessment on whether the patient meets the listing criteria for placement on the transplant wait list.”
The three-year pilot program will determine if there is an “evidence-based basis” to change the rule.
Selkirk said the six-month sobriety rule is based on faulty assumptions that people who have not been able to abstain from alcohol for six months do not do well when they receive a new liver and that many return to drinking. Selkirk said research does not support that, but shows the opposite, that those who have not abstained do well after liver transplants and that few return to drinking.
Six-month sobriety rules are common around the world. But some see the rule as outdated and based on poor public perception of alcohol addiction.
Selkirk’s husband was unable to get a liver transplant, even though she volunteered to donate a piece of her own liver. She said she has seen others, including a young man whose liver was damaged from acetaminophen, who have died while waiting the six months.
Lilly of Toronto’s United Health Network said there is still a big gap between supply and demand of livers for transplant, which is why is it crucial to determine which candidates are most likely to have successful transplants. “We are the marshals of a very scarce resource. The major message is that the supply still comes nowhere close to meeting the demand.”
Saunders’ family, meanwhile, say they they are determined to do everything they can to fight for her life — including challenging the sobriety rule.
Coffey said Thursday the family had retained a lawyer and was getting advice from Amnesty International, “which sees this as a human rights issues.”
Earlier this year, Saunders was interviewed in Teen Vogue magazine by musician Alicia Keys, who also received an Amnesty International award. A friend said the family was trying to contact her for support.
Her friends and family have set up a website at www.helpdelilah.com.
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
