Inuk advocate for women rejected for liver transplant due to alcoholism: friends – CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Dec 14, 2017

Friends of a 26-year-old advocate for Indigenous rights say they’ve launched a campaign for her to receive a liver transplant after they say she was deemed ineligible due to alcoholism.

Rebecca Moore says doctors have told Delilah Saunders _ who became an activist following the murder of her sister Loretta _ she’s not eligible to go on a waiting list in Ontario because she has not abstained from alcohol for a minimum of six months.

The close friend of the Inuk woman says getting a liver transplant is crucial for Saunders, who was admitted to the Ottawa Hospital on the weekend to be treated for acute liver failure.

Moore and family friend Darryl Leroux, a professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, say the family is considering taking legal action to force Ontario’s organ donation agency to place Saunders on the waiting list.

The agency, known at the Trillium Gift of Life Network, says in an email that its policy is based on advice from expert working groups, and the six-month abstinence guideline is commonly used across Canada and the United States.

It says the guideline doesn’t prevent a health-care provider from referring a patient to a transplant program, nor does it prevent a patient from receiving a consultation from a transplant program.

The agency says once a referral is made, the transplant program conducts an assessment on whether the patient meets the criteria for placement on the transplant wait list, which includes the abstinence requirement.

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