Woman Donates Kidney to Get Kidney

.c The Associated Press

 
SHALIMAR, Fla. (AP) - An Air Force technical sergeant is recovering from
surgery that made her the first participant in a third-person kidney donor
program - she gave a kidney to a stranger to put her brother at the top of a
waiting list.

Michelle Long's brother, Don Long, needs a kidney but neither she nor two
other siblings were compatible donors.

Instead, Long gave one of her kidneys on Feb. 12 to a stranger through the
living donor program of the Washington Regional Transplant Consortium, made
up of seven transplant centers in Washington, Virginia and Maryland.

In exchange, Don Long will get the next compatible kidney received by the
donor program.

Don Long's wait is being estimated at weeks instead of years. Without a
transplant, he might live only four years and would be facing dialysis four
hours a day, four days a week the rest of that time.

``If you have a loved one who needs a kidney, but you are not compatible, you
donate to the donor pool,'' said consortium spokeswoman Sara Ibler.

``I look at this way: I took two people off the list,'' said Michelle Long,
38, an air traffic controller at the Air Force's nearby Hurlburt Field in the
Florida Panhandle.

Some critics say the plan amounts to selling a kidney for a kidney. But Long
said she was paid nothing and probably would have been unable to afford the
procedure if she had not had Air Force health benefits.

The Air Force paid for most of her pre-operation testing and gave her paid
time off to have the operation and recuperate.

Don Long is waiting in Washington for Georgetown University Hospital to tell
him a kidney is available.

About 50,000 people nationwide are on the waiting list for kidneys, including
1,500 in the Washington, D.C., area.

On the Net:

Association of Kidney Patients: http://www.aakp.org/

Washington consortium: http://www.wrtc.org/mainframe.html