Decision angers kidney patients

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Decision angers kidney patients

Friday, September 28, 2007
By NADIA M. TAYLOR
Staff Reporter

Several kidney patients and a local coalition formed on their behalf said they're angry about the University of South Alabama's decision to no longer perform kidney transplants in Mobile.

"It's going to be a major hardship," said Barbara Hodnett, chairwoman of the Coalition for the Support of the USA Regional Transplant Center. "We need a center here. Bottom line."

Hospital officials announced last week that under a new collaboration, all transplants will be done at the University of Alabama at Birmingham after December. The USA center in Mobile will still be available for pre- and post-transplant care.

Strong competition from the more established program at UAB and a lack of local physician referrals resulted in meager patient numbers at the Mobile center, which also suffered persistent financial losses, officials said.

Financial losses also are worrying Mobile area patients.

"It's not an easy commute to Birmingham," Hodnett said. "Very few people on the list in Mobile can afford that."

There are about 200 people on the center's waiting list.

Hospital officials said they were developing plans to ease some of the travel costs for their patients, but still needed to work out details.

"If I was one of the 200 people on that list, getting a transplant, I'd be concerned about going to Birmingham, the 4½-hour trip and everything," said Stan Hammack, USA vice president for health systems. "We're aware of that, we're working to mitigate that."

Hammack said hospital officials have been looking at both Medicaid and the Kidney Foundation for assistance with transportation costs.

"If the community wants to step forward and help us figure out the right thing to do, help us with that piece," Hammack said.

Transportation costs and a dissatisfaction with the UAB program are two issues that Grady Metts of Mobile is struggling with.

"It's breaking my heart," Metts, 43, said of the decision to close the center. Metts, who was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in the mid-1990s, was on the Birmingham waiting list for more than four years, but never received a call.

He went on the Mobile list in 1999, and within three months, he underwent a kidney transplant at the USA center, he said.

"They gave me a new life," he said.

Metts was told about three months ago that his transplanted kidney was failing, and he would need another transplant soon. He had hoped that transplant would happen once again at the USA center.

His wife, Rebecca, said she spoke with hospital officials last week about her husband's options. She and Grady were told that they could either go on the list in Birmingham or the lists at centers in New Orleans or Jackson, Miss., she said.

"As of right now, I'm just going to go with my dialysis until I decide to make that decision," Grady Metts said.

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