The Organ Transplant Business
Surgeons completed a kidney transplant Wednesday in what is believed to be the first operation where the donor and recipient met through a commercial Web site.The donor and recipient were doing well after the four-hour surgery, a spokeswoman for Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center said.
The recipient, Bob Hickey, who lives in a mountain town near Vail, had needed a transplant since 1999 because of kidney disease but had tired of being on the national waiting list. Mr. Hickey met the donor, Rob Smitty, of Chattanooga, Tenn., through MatchingDonors.com, a Web site created in January to match donors and patients for a fee.
via Alex Tabarrok who notes that although many people are upset that Mr. Hickey paid to have his name listed on MatchingDonors.com, no one is bothered that “that the Hickey’s doctors were paid, his nurses were paid, the hospital was paid etc.”
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