NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – It’s a challenging process for people in need of a liver transplant in New Mexico, who must travel out of state because there is no living donor program available anywhere within the state. Back in the year 2000, the state’s only liver transplant center shut down due to a federal rule change, forcing people who want a living donor transplant to go out of state to Arizona, Texas, or Colorado for the procedure.
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“We have had a long history of patients from New Mexico coming to Denver to receive liver transplants,” UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital Medical Director of Liver Transplant, Dr. James Burton, said.
New Mexico’s only liver transplant center was shut down at the University of New Mexico Hospital in the year 2000. That’s when national rules for the waiting list changed, to favor the sickest patients rather than those who’d been on the list the longest. The new rules meant most livers donated in New Mexico were shipped out of state to places with bigger populations and sicker people. The center was doing too few operations to be sustainable…