The process is being spurred by large geographic disparities in access to donated livers. Patients in the Northeast and on the West Coast are less likely to receive organ transplants in a timely manner. In 2013, nearly 3,000 people either died while awaiting a transplant or were removed from the transplant list because they were too sick to undergo the procedure.
“There are many people that are dying every week around the country because they can't get access to life-saving livers,” Mulligan, who is the chief of transplantation and immunology at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said at the time the proposal was announced.
But even in its embryonic state, the plan has sparked a backlash from transplant doctors in states that could lose access to livers under the reapportionment. Last month, more than 40 doctors signed off on a letter (PDF) to the Health Resource Service Administration, the federal agency that contracts with UNOS, raising concerns about the process.
“If this proposal becomes implemented without adequate and constructive improvements, it would represent the most drastic change in liver allocation ever and would significantly disadvantage many areas of the country currently able to serve their patient population,” they wrote.
Follow Paul Demko on Twitter: @MHpdemko
