Wigan transplant patient given lungs of 30-year smoker

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/manchester/10307324.stm


Twenty-eight year old Lynsey Scott died months after she had a double lung transplant surgery. She was born with cystic fibrosis, but she underwent this surgery to prolong her life. It turned out that she got the lungs of a thirty year old smoker. Ms Scott died of pneumonia. The University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust followed the guidelines for organ retrieval. Allan Scott, Lynsey Scott’s father, said that her daughter would be “horrified” is she would have known that she got the lungs from a smoker. He is calling for patients to be given more information once they get a transplant.

My opinion:
In this article I agree with Lynsey Scott’s father. I think patients need to know some certain information before they accept an organ from another person. In this case it is really sad that the patient died after a couple months. They can’t say if she would have lived longer if she would have gotten someone else’s lungs, but it is a fact that she died of pneumonia. I don’t blame the hospital for this, because I know that they followed the national guidelines, but I think it might be time to chance those guidelines.