Post by RS Davis on Jan 19, 2004 17:26:42 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Adam Young Wrote:[/glow] Loni Wells is desperately ill. The 20-year-old Canadian is among the nearly 3,000 Canadians who require a kidney transplant each year. Suffering from a rare kidney disease called Focal Membrano Proliferative Glomerionephritis (MPGN), Loni required 8 ½ hours of dialysis every day after her kidney's failed completely in February 2000, and later haemodialysis treatments directly to her heart.
Because of her kidney disease, Loni suffers from low blood pressure and risks heart failure. She has been diagnosed with osteodystrophy, which is similar to osteoporosis and her body is no longer able to metabolize calcium. Loni requires constant medication, suffers from terrible headaches, has difficulty sleeping because of these and other aches and pains, and her body has difficulty manufacturing red blood cells.
Loni Wells suffers like this because of government policy. A misguided and shortsighted policy shared by both Canada and the United States. While nearly 3,000 Canadians languish on government waiting lists for a kidney transplant, where the wait typically stretches for 2 to 5 years, only about 1,100 receive transplants each year. The only option for Loni, her family concluded, was to find a living donor outside her family.
Loni's father came up with the idea of creating a website to tell Loni's story and appeal to donors. Over the course of a few days, more than 60,000 people visited the site. And surprisingly 36 complete strangers, motivated by Loni's plight, some from as far away as Florida, offered to fly to Edmonton and give her one of their kidneys.
But once these potential matches contacted the local branch office of the Stalinist medical system in Canada, their benevolence was brushed away.
Canadian law, like U.S. law, bans the buying or selling of human organs, but doesn't specifically address donations by complete strangers. The transplant monopoly, however, insists living donors be either family or close friends.
"There has to be an emotional bond, a close relationship to proceed to any further steps," explained Ed Greenberg of Capital Health in Edmonton.
And Loni continues to suffer.
"Oh, it crushes my spirit, it makes me mad," said Wells. "Every day I have to get up and I don't feel good, and I'm not eating. Dialysis takes this big chunk out of my life."
Because of her kidney disease, Loni suffers from low blood pressure and risks heart failure. She has been diagnosed with osteodystrophy, which is similar to osteoporosis and her body is no longer able to metabolize calcium. Loni requires constant medication, suffers from terrible headaches, has difficulty sleeping because of these and other aches and pains, and her body has difficulty manufacturing red blood cells.
Loni Wells suffers like this because of government policy. A misguided and shortsighted policy shared by both Canada and the United States. While nearly 3,000 Canadians languish on government waiting lists for a kidney transplant, where the wait typically stretches for 2 to 5 years, only about 1,100 receive transplants each year. The only option for Loni, her family concluded, was to find a living donor outside her family.
Loni's father came up with the idea of creating a website to tell Loni's story and appeal to donors. Over the course of a few days, more than 60,000 people visited the site. And surprisingly 36 complete strangers, motivated by Loni's plight, some from as far away as Florida, offered to fly to Edmonton and give her one of their kidneys.
But once these potential matches contacted the local branch office of the Stalinist medical system in Canada, their benevolence was brushed away.
Canadian law, like U.S. law, bans the buying or selling of human organs, but doesn't specifically address donations by complete strangers. The transplant monopoly, however, insists living donors be either family or close friends.
"There has to be an emotional bond, a close relationship to proceed to any further steps," explained Ed Greenberg of Capital Health in Edmonton.
And Loni continues to suffer.
"Oh, it crushes my spirit, it makes me mad," said Wells. "Every day I have to get up and I don't feel good, and I'm not eating. Dialysis takes this big chunk out of my life."
- Rick
