Would her organs have been of any use to anyone at this point? I imagine they’ve been through quite a lot, and I imagine there’s a limit to how much stress one can put organs through.
Any medical folks care to comment?
The SF Chronicle story was the first I’d heard of any “illegal alien” status for Jesica, who lived about 15 miles from me. (I never met her.)
The county I live in took her to their hearts, and started up a program akin to Habitat for Humanity where houses built with donated lumber and materials were sold in the high real estate market around here to raise money for critically ill children – called the Jesica’s House Program. Here’s a website on one of the houses. Here’s Jesica making handprints in the patio of the first Jesica’s House, located about ten miles northeast of us and about eight miles northwest of Tygr and Jkayla.
I’d be extremely surprised to find that someone had not arranged for a “compassionate visa” for the kid and her mother, given the circumstances.
[fixed links --Gaudere]
Speaking as the grandson of an organ donor, I don’t believe that they allow you to re-use donated organs.
(If they did, someone would have come around to take back Mickey Mantle’s replacement liver.)
Source: http://www.calib.com/naic/faqs/eight.cfm
Source: http://www.path2usa.com/VisitorVisa_Medical.htm
In reviewing various US Embassy sites around the world, the information above appears accurate.
Well, at least surely her liver, kidneys, and corneas could be donated, if not the heart and lungs. And what about skin, there a dozens of people in RI who desperately need skin transplants.
Whats up with the parents refusing to donate? You would think they would be eager to. I must say that the parents decision not to donate are making a lot of people say “See, look, gimme gimme gimme”
How many young children in the world need organ transplants to stay alive? Should we put them all on the waiting list? If not why not? They’re all young children aren’t they?
Just to clarify – I really don’t know how to answer those questions. Where do we draw the line? Children are children, people are people, and yet we certainly can’t be the world’s medical provider of last resort.
And, BTW in referencde to some comments above, may I point out, “non-citizen” IS NOT THE SAME AS "illegal alien". For the purposes of that 5%, or for the donors placing organs into the availability pool.
I mean, really… As mentioned before, had the initial transplant gone right, we would never even have heard of it. I’m going to presume, until somebody produces actual evidence, that her immigration situation was within the bounds of normalcy.
In any case, with organ donations it should be a simple matter of precedence of the greater need. Have we really grown so resentful and begrudging??
BTW, the mistake may be jeopardizing someone else’s life – whoever could have been the right recipient of the original organs did not get them!
Well, Ringo, it’s not a “universal provider” situation, it’s an “open MARKET” situation. Since in the USA medical care is allocated on the basis of ability to afford, rather than by state-mandated rationing, anyone who can afford to get treatment at a US hospital (and get the proper visas to be here) will be taken care of. It’s not like just anyone can show up on ourt shore and demand extraordinary treatments “just because.”
Er, sorry, that should have read Ring. Darn fingers…
So now we’re revoking citizenships based on politcal positions and what someone thinks? Mr. Ashcroft…is that you?
Not that I have an opinion one way or the other, but there is this, from a Yahoo! news story:
Presumably, the services of a smuggler would not have been required had her immigration been on the level. Assuming, of course, that the relatives are telling the truth.
Okay, let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is the truth – that a woman, knowing her daughter is dying of a rare heart condition, brings her to the U.S. for medical care, and doesn’t play by the rules in bringing her across the border.
So that makes her an illegal alien at the moment she crosses the border.
Now, considering we have this guy who is willing to help finance a major medical procedure for her – do you really think he’s not going to hire a good lawyer to regularize her status into that of a legal resident alien? In a state where nearly 15% of the population was born in Mexico, or to parents who were? Where problems with visas and such are a near-daily occurrence?
And just how many children who need heart transplants do you think are trying to get into this country, anyway? I haven’t seen any flames of the INS for turning away 100,000 critically ill children at one fell swoop. If there’s five a year who fit the situation of Jesica, I’ll be quite surprised.
I am not sure if I understand. You mean government health coverage? Yes, there is a system of public health care for those who cannot afford private care, but the waiting time for basic procedures (much less a complex operation that admittedly has been performed only a few times) is quite long. It is geared more toward essential health and emergency care.