Alberta stops appeal for anonymous donor
A public appeal made on behalf of a family looking for a person willing to donate a portion of their liver for an ailing eight-monthold girl has been grounded by Alberta Health Services regulations.
Meredith and Curtis Carlow’s daughter, Naomi, was born with biliary atresia, a life-threatening conditions in infants where the bile ducts in the liver malfunction or are absent, allowing bile to become trapped and eventually damage the liver.
A Facebook group was set up for friends and family to learn more about Naomi’s progress. A family friend sent out a news release in a bid to ask Edmontonians to come forward to see if someone would be a good match to donate part of their liver to Naomi.
Unlike in Ontario, where Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk recently underwent a successful liver transplant from an anonymous living donor less than a week after his team made a desperate public plea for a donor, Alberta Health Services does not allow people to anonymously donate livers for transplants.
“We work with family members, relatives and people close to the family,” AHS spokesman Kerry Williamson said.
“The family, they’re reaching out and that’s understandable, but I don’t think they understand that we don’t accept anonymous donations.”
Biliary atresia is a rare condition, affecting about one in every 10,000 to 20,000 infants, the Canadian Liver Foundation says. Left untreated, it can destroy liver function. Children with this condition rarely survive beyond the age of two.
Surgery can resolve many liver issues. If surgery doesn’t work, as was the case for Naomi, a transplant is the only solution. Once it was determined that Naomi needed a transplant, she was flown from her home in British Columbia to Edmonton, one of the few cities in Canada, besides Toronto and Montreal, where pediatric liver transplants are performed.
The plan hit a snag after it turned out that no one in her immediate family was a match.
“It kind of seems silly that there’s more regulations,” said Meredith Carlow. “I would donate my liver to somebody else.”