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Bay Area Boy Hopes To Get A New Liver

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

TAMPA - TAMPA - A Tampa Bay area foster boy is heading to Miami today for a possible liver transplant after another hospital removed him from an organ-donor waiting list in part because he doesn't have a permanent home.

Nick Cox, of the state's Department of Children & Families in Tampa, said Shands hospital in Gainesville also had other concerns about allowing the 15-year-old developmentally disabled boy to undergo a transplant.

"There were some medical reasons behind it," Cox, a regional director for DCF, said Tuesday. "Being a foster child didn't help."

A medical team at Jackson Memorial Hospital will evaluate the boy, who is not being identified to protect his privacy, before he can officially become a transplant candidate, Cox said.

A case manager supervisor from Eckerd Youth Alternatives, the Pinellas County agency fostering the boy, will travel with him to South Florida.

From there, child welfare leaders, advocates and others are working to find him a permanent home.

"It's not a matter of just finding a medical foster home," Cox said. "I believe we need some in-home care."

Cox declined to comment on the boy's condition or on his history with the department.

The boy's plight caught the attention of some board members of Florida's Children First, a children's advocacy group in Coral Springs working to get the foster teen into Jackson Memorial.

"They just all stepped up to the plate," said Andrea Moore, executive director of Florida's Children First.

She chided government agencies and Shands for not working together to help the boy.

LeAnne Jones, interim director for Shands' abdominal transplant program, declined to comment specifically on the foster boy's case but said the hospital has worked with DCF in the past and is familiar with the agency and the people it serves.

"We take our role as a transplant center very seriously," Jones said.

With every patient it evaluates, the center looks at both the patient's physical health and the person's support and compliance with doing medical therapy and other care, she said.

"We think that one of the worst things we can do is to perform a transplant with a high probability of an unsuccessful outcome," Jones said.

Jackson Memorial Hospital also is known for its transplant facilities.

Officials there would not comment directly on the boy's case, but a spokeswoman released this statement: "HIPAA prohibits Jackson Memorial Hospital from discussing a patient's medical care without written consent.

"Per hospital protocol, any patient in need of a transplant will be evaluated," wrote Lorraine Nelson, a hospital spokeswoman.

"This does not mean that the hospital has accepted the patient or that the patient will receive a transplant," she wrote.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144 or sackerman@tampatrib.com.

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