SFGate:
Victoria Colliver
Friday, February 10, 2012
UCSF Medical Center officials on Thursday said they would perform a kidney transplant operation on an Oakland man who had accused the medical center of denying him a kidney transplant because of his immigration status.
But the hospital said Jesus Navarro must prove he can pay for his medications and follow-up care after surgery.
Navarro, a 35-year-old father and illegal immigrant suffering from kidney disease, has received national attention. His case prompted 140,000 people to sign an online petition urging UCSF to approve his surgery and sparked widespread debate over whether patients' immigration status should influence whether they get the operation.
On Thursday, both UCSF officials and Navarro said much of the controversy has been a misunderstanding. They said Navarro's financial and health insurance uncertainties - not his immigration status - are the reason for the potential delays.
"UCSF does not and will not discriminate on the basis of immigration status," the hospital said Thursday in its first public statement about Navarro's case.
However, hospital administrators acknowledged his immigration status complicates the issue because it may make Navarro ineligible for government programs to help pay for ongoing medical care and lifesaving drugs needed to prevent organ rejection.
After a transplant, the cost of medications can range from $10,000 to $60,000 a year.
"Whether people are documented or not, this issue of assuring coverage for very, very expensive care is critical, and our current health care financing system is so fragmented it puts people in a real bind," said Dr. Joshua Adler, UCSF's chief medical officer. "That bind is even more limiting for people who are undocumented."
Navarro, originally from Mexico, has been waiting for a kidney for six years and undergoes nightly dialysis. His wife, Karen, hopes to be able to donate a kidney.
Last May, he met with UCSF officials as part of a review routinely conducted of potential transplant patients when they have about a year left on the waiting list. After the meeting, in which he revealed he was not here legally, UCSF changed Navarro's status on the kidney transplant waiting list to "inactive."
Navarro has insurance, but recently lost his job of 14 years. He is paying $1,100 a month to continue for his former employer's coverage. Assuming he can keep up with the payments, that option lasts only 18 months.
While UCSF officials would not go into detail, they did assure Navarro and his supporters this week that he had not lost his position on the waiting list and that they would work with him to develop a plan that would allow him to move forward with surgery.
That's good enough for Navarro, his family and his primary supporter, Donald Kagan, a local man who underwent a kidney transplant at UCSF 18 months ago.
"Before we assumed he was denied a kidney because of his immigration status," Kagan said. "UCSF has now recognized they need to improve their processes of communication. It's now very clear they do not discriminate based on immigration status."
Kagan said they are looking into all possibilities for how to pay for his ongoing care, including Medi-Cal and other options. "We are 100 percent sure we will be able to cover it, one way or another," he said.
UCSF has about 5,000 patients on the waiting list, and the hospital is able to transplant fewer than 350 a year.
The real problem, according to transplant organizations, is that there are too many people waiting for too few organs.
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