A sweet, beautiful, cognitively impaired little girl is being denied a kidney transplant because she is cognitively impaired. The issue here is not organ procurement. This child has a living donor in her family, willing to donate an organ to her. She needs only a transplant team who is willing to complete the surgery, and a venue where she can have the surgery and recover. Her name is Amelia, and as so many special needs parents can probably understand, she has multiple diagnoses.
Amelia's story is not mine to tell. Her mother did it beautifully here. I'm not sure of her entire background, and really, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, a transplant team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, whose motto is "Hope Lives Here," decided that this little girl's life is not important, because she's cognitively impaired. That this little girl should die, despite a willing organ donor, because she may never read the collected works of Shakespeare or solve a calculus equation.
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| Photo Credit: mikebaird |
Please, go an read Amelia's story, and then go sign the petition that Sunday Stillwell, @xtremeparnthood, started on Amelia's behalf. Share her story with everyone you can. On Twitter, the hashtag #TeamAmelia is being used. Because this could very easily be my child, or your child.
Let's show Amelia's parents that Hope does, indeed, Live Here.
Update 1/14/11 11:17 AM: Kristen, over at A Little Something for Me, gave us an update on Amelia.
Bravo! Thank you for posting this. This is how I feel, yet I couldn't find the words to express the outrage and hurt. Sharing this along with the other post, blogs, and petition to get the word out.
ReplyDeleteSince reading Amelia's story last night I feel like my heart is stuck in my throat over the disgust that in today's age, in America, that the medical community finds these type of decisions acceptable.
Yeah it took me awhile to get there. I could (maybe) understand if they had (have) denied the transplant due to other reasons, but all the parents have heard is the "mental retardation" aspect. That is unfortunate. I've heard the parents are supposed to be meeting with the hospital this week; I'm hoping they will release a statement afterwards with an update.
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