WOMAN NEEDS NEW LIVER TO LIVE
B.C. grandmother who lost two sisters while waiting on the transplant list fearful of the same fate
Prince George grandmother Val Mowatt, who lost two of her sisters to the same genetic disease she was diagnosed with in October, has been told she needs a liver transplant to survive.
One of her daughters is a potential match and is willing to be a live donor to help save her mother's life, but the family has come up against bureaucratic red tape in getting approval to have the surgery done in Edmonton and ensure it is funded by the provincial government.
Mowatt, a 60-year-old mother of four and grandmother of seven, is scared she will meet the same fate as her two sisters, who both died while waiting on the B.C. Transplant waiting list.
Out-of-province organ transplants are paid for through Medical Services Plan, but Mowatt has been told she must be on the B.C. Transplant waitlist first, despite no one in B.C. performing live-donor liver transplants.
The trouble is she also needs to be on the waitlist in Alberta and patients cannot be on two waiting lists in different provinces at the same time. Her physician has to refer her to B.C. Transplant, which she has been told could take two months before she is even approved to be on the B.C. waitlist.
Then B.C. Transplant would have to refer her to Alberta.
Mowatt has written a letter to Health Minister Adrian Dix requesting confirmation from B.C. to have the surgery paid for in Edmonton so she can go straight on the Alberta waitlist, but said she has not received a response.
A live-donor liver transplant is a procedure performed by a surgeon to remove a portion of the liver from a healthy person and place it into someone whose liver is failing. The liver transplant centre for B.C. is at Vancouver General Hospital, but the surgeons there only perform deceased donor liver transplants.
Mowatt said she feels her only chance of survival is to go to Edmonton. Mowatt was overcome with emotion as she explained how she has already lost two sisters to primary biliary cirrhosis, the same genetic disease that she was diagnosed with in October.
Her youngest sister, Judy Morrison, died eight years ago while on the waitlist for a liver transplant, while her eldest sister Veronica Morrison died Jan. 20. She was also on the transplant list until she was told she was too weak to survive the surgery, said Mowatt.
Two weeks ago her doctor told her she had about three months to live, Mowatt said.
“It's so frustrating, so sad,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I need to be here for my grandbabies. They need me.”
Tina Robinson, a spokesperson for B.C. Transplant, said as of March 1 there are 720 people in B.C. waiting for an organ transplant.
Of those, 41 are waiting for a liver. In 2020, the liver transplant program performed 80 liver transplants.
The provincial government did not respond to repeated requests for comment while B.C. Transplant did not respond to further questions by deadline.