After much public outrage, it seems that the University of California -San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) may have agreed to preform the kidney transplant that Jesus Navarro needs. However, the hospital still wants proof that he can pay for the follow up care. The hospital says he was not denied specifically because he is in the United States illegally.
Jesus Navarro is 35 years old. He has a wife, and a three year old daughter. He had been working, full time, at the Pacific Steel Foundry for fourteen years. He somehow managed to continue to work full time while in need of a kidney transplant. He needed to have dialysis done every night.
Fortunately, Jesus Navarro has a private health insurance plan, (that didn’t come from his job). This is good, because it means that when he lost his job, as the result of an “immigration audit”, he continued to be covered by health insurance.
Jesus Navarro is in the United States illegally. Last year, he was placed at the top of the kidney transplant list at the University of California- San Francisco Medical Center. However, when they learned that he was an illegal immigrant, that changed. He was removed from the list. It turns out that Navarro’s wife is a match, and wants to donate one of her kidney’s to him. The hospital still refused to preform the transplant surgery.
Someone started an online petition, urging the hospital to give Jesus Navarro his transplant. The petition had 140,000 signatures on it. As a result, the UCSF has made a statement that said they would preform the transplant, after all.
The hospital also clarified some things about this controversial case. The hospital wants to point out that they were not denying the transplant specifically because Jesus Navarro is an illegal immigrant. They said:
“UCSF does not and will not discriminate on the basis of immigration status”.
Instead, the issue for the hospital has to do with “financial and health insurance uncertainties”. After an organ transplant is done, the recipient requires ongoing medical care, and medications that will help their body to accept the donated organ. Those medications can range from $10,000 to $60,000 a year.
The hospital wants to see proof that Jesus Navarro can pay for those health care costs. Right now, he still has health insurance. Without a job, he won’t be able to continue to pay for the insurance indefinitely. The hospital acknowledges that his immigration status will make him ineligible for certain types of public health insurance or financial assistance.
UCSF also says that Jesus Navarro has not been dropped from the transplant list. The hospital is willing to work with him in order to develop a plan that would allow him to move forward with the transplant surgery. Navarro has a financial supporter named Donald Kagan, a local man who himself underwent a kidney transplant at UCSF 18 months ago.
Image by epugachev on Flickr