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Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on July 07, 2011, 10:47:58 PM
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Who earns a new life?
Steve Price From: Herald Sun July 08, 2011 12:00AM
Derryn Hinch is recovering after a lifesaving liver transplant. Picture: Alex Coppel Herald Sun
DERRYN Hinch has never been afraid to kick someone after they are dead, so he shouldn't be surprised someone is willing to have a go at him while he is still alive.
Derryn was probably expecting it, and if the situation he finds himself in involved some other high-profile person he would probably be having a go himself.
His hit list on celebrities after they died includes David Hookes, Graham Kennedy and Peter Brock among others.
Hinch has a new liver after destroying the one God gave him with a lifetime of self-confessed alcohol abuse. Derryn has admitted publicly he was an alcoholic who for many years consumed up to four bottles of wine a day.
He even authored a diet book based around eating soup and drinking white wine. His drinking was something he never tried to hide and he convinced himself, as do many alcoholics, that it didn't affect his work.
Related Coverage
Hinch 'grateful' for liver transplant
Adelaide Now, 1 day ago
I am so grateful, says Derryn Hinch
Herald Sun, 1 day ago
Hinch 'fantastic' after liver transplant
The Daily Telegraph, 1 day ago
Hinch back on air after liver transplant
NEWS.com.au, 1 day ago
Hinch receives new liver
Courier Mail, 1 day ago
But it sure affected his health to the point where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and eventually with liver cancer. When his drinking destroyed the liver that's now been removed he looked like death warmed up - like a dead man walking.
That scare and the subsequent cancer diagnosis, would be enough to convince anyone that it was time to stop drinking.
Medical authorities extracted from Derryn a promise not to drink while waiting for a transplant.
A promise he delivered on but now what's the guarantee that the new - as described by surgeons - soft, supple and pink donor liver won't end up dark and scarred like the one they took out.
That's a personal road Hinch has to travel down, but it does raise the ethical question of whether victims of self-abuse should be able to access healthy organs while other sick people wait on a list.
Why would we provide the ultimate healthcare, the gift of a sensible person's healthy organ extracted after an accident, to someone without the discipline to not destroy their own with of abuse.
We are not talking about people struck down by a mysterious cancer but someone who contributes to their own illness.
The waiting list for healthy organs in Australia is up around the 1700 mark, with more than a hundred waiting for a liver. So what qualified Hinch for the new one other than time spent waiting?
Was his high profile an advantage? Were donor advocates desperate for the sort of wall-to-wall publicity giving Hinch a liver would bring?
Australia, as we know, has a poor record when it comes to organ donation.
Ironically, it was the death of my friend and former champion cricketer David Hookes that saw a major campaign to convince Australians to donate organs.
David was struck by a bouncer near a Melbourne hotel, hit his head on the pavement, and was taken off life support later the same night by his wife, Robyn.
His organs were donated by his family and then followed a campaign for organ donors, backed financially by the
late Kerry Packer, his old lieutenant, Sam Chisholm, - himself a double-lung recipient - and broadcaster Alan Jones.
I say ironically because Derryn Hinch used his radio program to air scuttlebutt about David Hookes on the very day of his funeral in Adelaide. I know because I had to tell David's children what he had said.
The question is should a person who has, by self-abuse, damaged beyond repair their liver or heart or kidneys or lungs be able to apply for a transplant. Or should those valuable, hard-to-harvest and rare healthy organs taken from a tragic accident victim be only available to otherwise clean-living people.
Why should a smoker who has been warned about the dangers of lung cancer over and over by their doctor then be able to get a lung transplant?
If people are not sensible enough to eat healthy food and not get obese, why would the medical system offer up to them a healthy heart?
Last year in Western Australia we had the famous case of 24-year-old Clare Murray, a heroin addict who, after a liver transplant, kept using the drug and wrecked the new liver. She went to Singapore to try to get another one.
She left behind two small children and even put her aunt through an operation to help donate part of her liver. Murray died in hospital in Singapore owing the State Government money loaned to her to keep her alive.
Derryn Hinch is a very lucky man.
Statistics show us that 20 per cent of Australians on the liver transplant list suffering cancer die before a liver becomes available. Hinch has also had the advantage of a top-rating radio program on 3AW and a national profile to bring attention to his own case.
Surely his constant updates on air and on Twitter have had an effect on a health system aware he was waiting. No one, including me, is suggesting that he bumped a more worthy candidate from the list but it can't have hindered his chances either.
No one could be happier than me that Hinch survived.
He's a character amid a bland Australian media that keeps giving headlines, even if most of them are about him. He has sued me and been paid. He paid out on me, and me on him, on air and off air for years.
That though is not my reason for questioning the wisdom of giving a 67-year-old self-confessed former alcoholic a brand new liver.
I just think some balance is needed in all the glorification of his survival and a discussion is required about who gets that rare second chance at life. Good luck, Derryn, and for God's sake keep off the grog.
Steve Price is on MTR1377 from 6am weekdays
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/who-earns-a-new-life/story-e6frfhqf-1226090139023