Thoughts on Kidneys

This is a response to someone else's posting. I read this and, being in the business myself, had a few things to add. The first paragraph addresses the problem of incompatibility; specifically, when someone volunteers to be a donor (usually for a family member or friend), and it does not work out. There is a program established for this. It is called the paired kidney exchange, or incompatible kidney exchange. Thus, if someone in need of a kidney transplant and their only option for a donor is someone who is found to be incompatible, and given that the donor is still willing to go through with the procedure, then another set of incompatible donor and recipient can often be found to complement both recipients.

The rest of the posting refers to a national kidney exchange program. Believe me, this idea, and those similar, have not been wholly overlooked by the transplant community. All of the diagrams and equations are like communism: they work well on paper; but this is why mathematicians aren't managing our nation's organ transplant system. As of 10 o'clock tonight, there are 73,123 people on the waiting list for 77,159 kidneys. However, in 2006 (2007 data not complete yet, obviously), there were 6,431 living kidney donors leading to transplants, and 1
10,659 deceased donors providing kidney transplants. These numbers are HUGE. Just so that this doesn't get too long, we are going to assume that there are unlimited hospitals, operating rooms, and available staff to complete even double the amount of transplants as they already do.

So, let's say that more people wanted to be live kidney donors. Let's also say that by this point, they've gotten past the pain, the possibility of infection, and/or pneumonia, the not-all-that-uncommon risk of major complications or death, the week-long hospital stay and the following 4-6 weeks that they will be out of work (most likely unpaid), 3 months of no exercise, the financial implications of travel and lodging, and the possibility (based on several studies) that depression or hypertension may ensue following the donation. This is all compounded by the fact that you will be living with one kidney for the rest of your life. Only after all of this consideration is someone even ready to enter the testing phase, at which point a very large portion of these people are not eligible due to health. Don't get me wrong, all of this hoo-ha might very well be worth it if we are talking about saving the life of Mom or Uncle Ted. However, due to the current practices in place, most people would be doing all of this for strangers. Let's be real, how often are most people even willing to donate blood to save a stranger's life? I could go on and on, but I think that's enough for now..