Alcoholic dies aged 22

Gosh that's tragic.

I think I agree with you that it makes sense for people to have to prove they are committed to stopping drinking, though at the same time, as with any addiction, we need to recognise how hard that is.

In this case you'd hope they could change the rule - but then if he's that ill is he going to be able to take the operation?

That's a really sad story and I don't think that casting around (as the comments on the timesonline do) for "someone to blame" really helps. It's just tragic and he's in a horrible catch 22 - he can't leave hospital to prove that he can abstain, but if he doesn't abstain, he won't get a new liver so he won't leave hospital...heart breaking.

But the health service has finite resources to treat people and that leads to harsh decisions, doesn't it? I wonder if there isn't more to it - as Hazel says, if he's that sick, then how will he handle massively invasive surgery and stacks of immuno suppresant drugs? Although I suppose people who require transplants are generally very unwell, so maybe that's the norm.

Sad. Just very sad.

It's a tragic story, it really is.

Apparently his consultant was in favour of an exception to the (otherwise reasonable) rule because he was too poorly too demonstrate he was free from alcohol and I suspect because his illness seems relatively sudden.

But I don't know if he was just too poorly to survive transplantation anyway.

I can only imagine this is a relatively common situation, but most people it happens to are far older so we don't hear about it.

I'm certain there is more to this story because I can't believe the donor service are so inflexible in their procedures that they don't look at individual cases-and I suspect a consultant recommending a patient for transplant carries weight.

What an awful, tragic story.

Can it really come on that quickly that he wouldn't have been warned to stop his drinking and had a period of trying though?

I'm usually quite hard hearted about this kind of story but having started drinking at 13, like the story says, he was a child who knew no better really - that's what adults/parents/teachers are for.

Hard to see someone just left to die though, very hard, even more sad to see the numbers who died whilst on the waiting list - just highlights the need for more donors I suppose.

Well, I have had a brief look, as this made me wonder about a few things (namely, that few adult livers must be in a good enough state to transplant after death) and there are now a few cases of live liver donation in the UK.

My Mum is pro donation (wants everything taken out of her) and recently asked me about my wishes, so I told her they could take the lot too. She said she wouldn't want to give permission for my liver to be used (good luck!?) in a transplant for an alcoholic.

I told her I didn't care, it wasn't up to me to make that judgement, if I donate I donate. But it does bother me that she may go against my wishes in these cases. I must bring it up with her again, and tell her about the 6 months sober part.

Fecking barsteward machine ate reply again ?

I think it's a desperately sad story, but I don't think anyone's to blame apart from his parents (how the hell do you stand by and let your son become an alcoholic at thirteen?).

The simple statistical fact is that there are far more people in need of transplants than there are donors (something like a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio, if I remember rightly), so some kind of lottery will unavoidably have to operate, however callous that sounds. In these circumstances, insisting that the recipient demonstrate that he/she is prepared to mend his/her ways seems only fair, given that it's a waste of a perfectly good liver which someone else might have put to better use.

If you donate, you donate unconditionally. If you receive, you receive unconditionally.

There was a case some 10yrs ago when I worked there, where the recipient (or was it the donor's family, I forget now) wanted to put race conditions on the organ. Big hoohaa obviously.

The liver is one of the few organs where you don't have to transplant the whole organ. The donor retains part of the liver and this then regenerates. Same happens to the donated part of the liver in the recipient. Fascinating.