Oregon Death Row Kidney Transplant Said Unlikely

SEATTLE, (Reuters) - Oregon officials on Wednesday rejected a death row inmate's claim that a prison doctor told him he would be a viable candidate for a kidney transplant, a statement which had ignited a fierce ethical debate.

Horacio Alberto Reyes-Camarena told Reuters recently that he had been counseled about the extensive medication he would require after any transplant surgery as well as the rigorous application process he would have to pass to get a new organ.

Oregon Department of Corrections spokeswoman Perrin Damon called those statements "fiction."

"He has not had a discussion with his (prison) physician and we are going to counsel him that if he wants to have a kidney transplant, he is going to have to have a conversation with his physician," Damon told Reuters by telephone.

Reyes-Camarena said he would accept a kidney if one were offered, but had not asked for one, since he is slated to die anyway for stabbing an 18-year-old woman to death in 1996 and repeatedly stabbing her sister, who survived the attack.

Medical and legal experts have debated the question of whether a death row inmate should get an organ transplant since thousands of others around the country are waiting for such potentially life-saving surgeries.

Department of Corrections Medical Director Steven Shelton said simply being an inmate would not disqualify a patient from receiving a transplant.

Shelton declined to discuss Reyes-Camarena specifically, citing patient confidentiality rules, but he listed several factors that could prevent doctors from recommending a condemned person for a transplant.

"Life expectancy is clearly one of the published criteria for transplant consideration," Shelton said. "You want the organ to live as long as possible in a person that makes the best use out of that organ."

A wide range of other social and economic factors are also considered in judging transplant eligibility, including personality, compliance with medical treatments, ability to function with authority in a complex situation, and family and social support systems, Shelton said.

If he pursues all available legal appeals, Reyes-Camarena could live for several more years, even if his sentence stands.

"It is an interesting ethical question. Should an inmate be eligible for a kidney transplant?" Shelton said.

Prison officials had not yet been asked to consider such a step and no Oregon inmates were on current waiting lists for solid organ transplants, officials said.

Oregon has been forced to slash education and health programs to close a $2 billion two-year budget hole, but is obligated to pay about $120,000 a year to clean Reyes-Camarena's blood with a dialysis machine.

A kidney transplant would cost about $100,000, plus thousands more for follow-up treatments.

Copyright © 2003 Reuters.

This article posted June 1, 2003.