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The controversy behind Job’s lever transplant
by Jamie Anderson - June 29, 2009 - comments
Steve Jobs is all set to be back at the helm of affairs at Apple Inc. after a six month long medical leave
California, June 29: Steve Jobs, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL, LSE: 0HDZ, FWB: APC), the man who has been instrumental in taking the organization to such dizzy heights has always been in the limelight.
Be it for the iconic iPhones, for his dedication and commitment towards Apple, or for his medical condition in the recent past, the paparazzi has always been after Steve.
The moot point
This time around, Steve Jobs' recent liver transplant has dominated headlines. Billionaire Steve Jobs received a liver transplant far faster than the national average.
Jobs, a resident of California, got himself operated upon for a liver transplant, in Tennessee, a state that has a much lower average waiting period.
All Jobs did was that he availed of a rule (being termed as utilized a loophole) in the organ transplant process that enables people to submit an application for transplants in states they are not residents of.
John Fung, chairman of transplant surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, said “You could call it gaming the system, that may be true. But until we tackle the problem of what makes the system unfair, we can’t criticize people who are trying to help themselves.”
Steve thus became one of the lucky 6,500 candidates to receive the transplant from amongst the 16,000 Americans who are on The United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list for a liver.
This has sparked off a huge debate, amidst the federal law claims of no one can buy a transplant, that in reality the rich and the famous have better chances of ‘buying’ themselves an organ.
Sickest liver patient
Data maintained by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, a national database of transplant statistics based in Ann Arbor, Michigan reveals that it is common practice for patients go to transplant centers in Memphis, Jacksonville and Florida, because of shorter wait period in these centers compared to the rest of the U.S.
James Eason, chief of transplantation at Methodist University Hospital, where Jobs had been operated upon, confirmed that the CEO of Apple was the sickest liver patient in the Memphis area at the time the organ became available. Now that for sure is a valid enough reason for an early transplant.