Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Denies Lifesaving Transplants to Girl with Developmental Disabilities

CHOP has denied this little girl, who has Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome a lifesaving kidney transplant because she has developmental delay.  Read her story.  Sign a petition. Sign another petition.  Write on CHOP's Facebook Page.


CHOP has issued the following statement justifying their actions:

"We have watched with great concern the comments regarding criteria used in making transplant eligibility decisions. We understand your concerns and reactions to the Facebook postings.

We strive to provide the safest possible care for our patients and we make transplant eligibility decisions based on widely-accepted, medically valid methods, with many factors considered. We want you to know that CHOP does not have any criteria which exclude patients from being considered for transplant solely on the basis of their cognitive status. Transplant programs at CHOP have never declined a patient for transplant based solely on their cognitive status and we have performed transplants on many children with disabilities and impairments.

CHOP’s transplant programs continue to evaluate and perform transplants on some of the most complex cases in the country. We use an established framework for consistent evaluation and transplantation. Each child is evaluated on an individual basis, taking multiple medical, surgical, and psychosocial aspects into consideration. In each evaluation, we consider the possible risk and outcome of the recipient, potential donor options, as well as alternative therapies.

In order to determine eligibility for transplantation, a multidisciplinary evaluation is completed by several members of the transplant team, which would include careful assessment of a patient by surgical and transplant specialists, as well as, psychosocial, and neurologic specialists. Parents and family members are very much a part of the discussion.

We wish to emphasize that all determinations of eligibility for transplantation are treated on an individual basis. We make all decisions regarding eligibility using a non-discriminatory approach, after a multidisciplinary assessment and discussion, which is the standard of practice throughout the country.

These communications are very important to us and provide us with an opportunity to always re-examine and reassess our approach and process. We hope that we can continue to improve and continue to provide exceptional care for children with organ failure."

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