Scarcity

Scarcity in Liver Transplants

University of Phoenix

Today in the United States, more than 17,000 people in are waiting for liver transplants. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) about 5,300 liver transplantations were performed in the United States in 2002. Because the number of liver transplants needed far outweighs the number of liver donations medical doctors, researchers and scientists have come up with different stages and techniques for liver transplantations. For example, split grafts refers to dividing a donor liver into two segments that can be used for two recipients. “With a living donor transplant, a healthy person donates part of his or her liver to the recipient. This procedure has been increasingly successful and shows promise as a solution to the shortage of liver donors. It is becoming the most frequent option in children, partly because child-sized livers are in such short supply (Liver Transplant Overview)”. Stakeholders, the patients and their families and those involved in the patient’s health care team are faced with difficult choices that are based on the astounding waiting list for transplants.

For patients that are suffering from liver disease, the medical costs are associated with hospital stays, medications, surgeries and doctors. According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, “The actual liver transplant (surgery) and 7-day stay in a hospital usually costs between $150,000 and $250,000. The cost of medications following transplant is about $12,000 per year.” Families and patients are unable to pay the institutions for the liver transplantations. Because of these expenses not being met by the insurance and families, the economic flow for the health care facilities suffers. Economic flow can involve both money and services. When observing the basic flow of the health care market it is between the consumer who pays a third party insurer who then reimburses the providers such as doctors,...