NEWS FLASH

Hospital To Provide Kidney Transplant For Dying Undocumented Immigrant | A California hospital has agreed to perform a kidney operation for Jesus Navarro, a dying undocumented immigrant who had previously been told he could not have the surgery because of his immigration status. An online petition pushing the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center to allow his transplant gained 140,000 of signatures within days of being launched by a former kidney transplant patient. The hospital announced last week that it was moving forward with Navarro’s procedure so long as he continued to have insurance to cover post-transplant care. “[T]his 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.”

– Fatima Najiy