The parents of a 10-year-old girl are currently fighting against a policy that offers lung transplants first to adults and then to children below the age of 12.
Sarah Murnaghan is a 10 year old girl who has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and has been on the pediatric waiting list for new lungs for 18 months. Her family is currently fighting a transplant policy, which states that adult lungs be offered to all adult patients before they can be offered to someone under 12 years of age. Since Sarah is only 10, she's been pushed to the bottom of the adult waiting list for new lungs.
"We are not asking for preference for Sarah, we are asking for equality," Sarah's mother, Janet Murnaghan, said in a press release. "We strongly believe Sarah should be triaged based on the severity of her illness, not her age."
Though Sarah is currently way up on the pediatric waiting list for new lungs, there are so few pediatric organ donors, that it is difficult to find a match for her. There were only 11 lung donors between 6 and 10 years old and only two lung transplants in that age group in 2012, according to an Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network statement.
"A week went by with nothing, no offers," Sarah's aunt, Sharon Ruddock said. "They said, 'Well, you're not at the front of the line. It goes to all adults, and if all the adults turn them down, the lungs go to the kids.'"
Patients with cystic fibrosis usually have a life expectancy of 31 years but if they get a lung transplant the illness is totally cured. However, in the case of Sarah, if she doesn't get a lung transplant soon, there's a high possibility that the young girl won't live long enough to turn 11.
"It's a very disheartening thing to hear and read about because you've got a child in desperate need of a transplant to survive ... and people less qualified in terms of severity are able to get that organ instead of this child because of what's in place," Dr. Devang Doshi, a pediatric lung specialist at Beaumont Children's Hospital in Michigan said. "From a medical standpoint, we look at these types of hurdles and obstacles and sometimes get frustrated with the system."
