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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Los Angeles) – A new program gaining national momentum allows people to donate a kidney today, in exchange for a voucher for a friend or loved one, should they ever need a kidney transplant in the future.
“This is groundbreaking and could completely change the field of transplantation,” said Dr. Jeffrey Veale, a transplant surgeon who initiated the program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “The demand for a kidney transplant is tremendous, but with this program, I would argue that, for the first time in history, we can actually start reducing the number of people who are on the waiting list.”
Currently, there are some 30 million Americans who suffer from chronic kidney disease and more than 100,000 who are on a waiting list for a donor kidney. Each day, an average of 13 people die while waiting.
Already, 9 other hospitals across the U.S. have joined UCLA and agreed to honor the voucher program. Recently, the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons also voted in favor of the voucher program and sent the matter to their executive committee for formal approval.
It’s an innovative approach to organ donation that actually came from a patient named Howard Broadman, whose grandson was born with only one kidney that wasn’t fully functioning. “I was 64 at the time, and my grandson was 4,” he said. “I knew my grandson would eventually need a transplant, but by that time I would be too old. So, I came up with the voucher idea.”
“If one half of one percent of the adults in this country decided to become living donors, we could wipe out the kidney donation waiting list 15 times over,” said Veale.
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