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Steve Jobs On Organ Transplant Lists: “I Almost Died” Waiting

8:44AM March 20, 2010 | Rosa Golijan

When Steve Jobs received his liver transplant, he was considered “the sickest person on the waiting list”. Now he’s remarking about the faults in California’s current organ donor system which left 400 people dying in wait last year alone:

“I was fortunate,” he said because he had the ability to fly cross country in the four-hour window needed to transplant a healthy organ. “Last year, 400 other Californians died waiting. I could have died.”

He called current system “an obscure process” with “no one asking the simple question: Will you donate your organs?”

Of his current health, the whippet-thin Jobs told other transplant survivors who attended the Friday news conference, “I’m feeling fine. I almost died. It’s been a pretty good last few months.”

Let’s hope that the United State’s first living organ donor registry being introduced in California today changes things for the better. [Mercury News via Business Insider]

Comments

  • ian brown

    March 20, 2010 at 9:28 AM

    How to fix this:
    Step 1: Give a token payment (or more) to the family of one deceased who could donate, or, better still, allowed a potential donor to will his/her organ_payment to family. Everyone gets paid now in the process except the donor. If you paid the donor (or their family) you’d increase by 1000% the donated organs. THEY would ask to donate.

    Step 2: Disallow those who are “squeamish” about donating their organs if they die from recieving an organ should they need it. The driver’s license code becomes “Donate/RECIEVE DONATIONS list” .. If you can’t bring yourself to be on a donor list, you shouldn’t be allowed to receive when it is time to do so.

    With these two implementations, you solve the issue. Simple.. only “moral qualms” are stopping these quite simple things from being implemented.

    • Kif

      March 21, 2010 at 10:55 AM

      I agree with step 2, however, I’m waiting for the impending release of the iLiver, iKidney and iHeart. Don’t by a Version 1.0 though, wait until the bugs are worked out (unless dying soon, then I wish you luck).

    • Mike Biggs

      March 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM

      I dont agree totally with Step 1, money is a funny thing in this situation. If medical insurance covered it, then it might work, but people waiting for organs have little options left and even less money.

      Step 2 is an awesome idea!! Totally agree. If you want to be able to recieve, put your hand up to give first. :)

  • matt

    March 22, 2010 at 1:41 AM

    ““I was fortunate,” he said because he had the ability to fly cross country in the four-hour window needed to transplant a healthy organ.”

    “Presumably in response to the New York Times‘ speculation that Jobs’ wealth and influence helped him secure a liver sooner than he might otherwise have, the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee issued a statement with Jobs’s consent that denied any such thing happened.”

    well, really… it did.

  • AnthonyP

    March 22, 2010 at 10:20 AM

    What needs to be done is that instead of a donors list, we need a not-a-donor list. Make it law that everyone is a donor. You then have to opt out to not be a donor!

    This will save lives and reduce cost, stress etc, becuase everyone is a donor.

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