A dying woman was refused a partial liver transplant offered by her own partner because she drank while on the waiting list.
Amanda Husk, 36, has been on a ventilator for three months awaiting the much-needed organ.
But she was denied the transplant after doctors discovered the struggling alcoholic had relapsed before being admitted to hospital.
Now her devastated loved ones have been told she has just weeks to live, despite Husk agreeing to enter an addiction program once she received her new liver.
“This was a wake-up call for her, she wanted to take every advantage and every opportunity to ensure she could get this transplant and change her life,” her partner Nathan Allen said. CTV News.
Amanda Husk has been refused a liver transplant because she had been drinking while on the waiting list.
The 36-year-old has been on a ventilator for three months while waiting for the much-needed organ.
Allen had offered to be a donor himself because he has a matching blood group.
However, doctors at the University Health Network in Ontario denied the transplant request on the grounds of “minimal non-hospital abstinence.”
Allen’s next course of action is to get Husk to Europe, where a transplant would be possible, but he fears she may not survive that long.
“We were told last week that she has a few weeks to live, maybe a month if she’s very lucky,” Allen said, explaining that the treatment could cost $300,000.
“I will do what I can to save her life, just as the medical profession here should do.”
Husk started drinking as a teenager and struggled to control her addiction.
The heartbreaking case has raised ethical questions surrounding the treatment of addiction.
Currently, approximately 600 people are waiting for a liver transplant for various reasons. About one in ten people who undergo a transplant for alcoholic liver disease start drinking again.
Debra Selkirk, whose husband Mark died in 2010 after being denied a liver transplant due to binge drinking, denounced the decision.
Allen had offered to be a donor himself because he has a matching blood group
However, doctors at the University Health Network in Ontario denied the transplant request on the grounds of “minimal non-hospital abstinence.”
Allen now wants to transport Husk to Europe for a transplant, but fears she may not survive that long
Her partner Nathan Allen said she promised to enter an addiction program after receiving the transplant but was still denied
“A life-saving procedure is based on observed bad behavior,” she said.
‘People aren’t turned away because they haven’t exercised, or because they work too much, don’t sleep enough or haven’t followed the doctor’s orders.
“So in the case of Nathan and Amanda, you see someone saying to you, ‘You didn’t follow the doctor’s orders, so we’re not going to help you. We’re going to let you die,” she said.
Selkirk is campaigning for more compassion for people with liver failure caused by alcohol abuse.
Edmonton liver transplant surgeon Dr. Saumya Jayakumar, who was not involved in Husk’s case, explained that the criteria for transplants are generally fairly uniform across Canada.
‘It is a precious gift. It is a limited resource,” she said. “As you can imagine, making these decisions can result in a significant amount of moral distress for team members.
“We can give you a brand new liver, but if we can’t change all the conditions that led to the liver failure, have we really done you a favor?” she said.
“I would say that every transplant center in Canada is struggling with both access to mental health funding for patients and access to mental health practitioners for transplant programs.” she said.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, there were more than 45,000 deaths from alcohol-related liver disease in the US in 2022.
About 29,000 of the deaths were men, while the remaining 16,000 were women.
Husk started drinking as a teenager and struggled with addiction into adulthood
Her plight has raised ethical questions surrounding the treatment of people with addiction problems
Typically, alcoholic liver disease affects more men than women, but rates among women are rising in line with more women drinking than before.
The disease, which causes abdominal pain, fatigue and jaundice, among other things, has a higher mortality risk in women.
Researchers at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and colleagues found that women with steatotic liver disease linked to alcohol use are almost twice as likely to die within a given period of time than men with the same condition.
Medics believe this is because women produce fewer alcohol-breaking enzymes than men and generally have lower body mass and body water content.
‘We cannot comment on specific cases due to patient privacy, but can say that there are multiple eligibility criteria for living donors, only two of which are blood type and willingness. Recipient criteria are determined jointly by transplant centers and the Trillium Gift of Life Network,” UHN officials said.