Instead of approving her for a liver transplant, doctors pushed this woman to enter a substance abuse program after detecting the presence of alcohol in her body. The problem? She hadn’t had anything to drink...
Life or Death
For Christine Leland, the stakes were high. The Pennsylvania resident had traveled to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center seeking a liver transplant, which she needed in order to survive. At first, the UPMC transplant team said no—and it wasn’t the first time that Leland had been denied.
Signs of a Problem
Leland had been rejected by a different hospital’s transplant program. UMPC was her only hope, but they wouldn’t even add her to the waitlist. Instead, the transplant team referred her to an alcohol addiction treatment program. Leland was sober, but nobody seemed to believe her. Finally, they took another look at the lab results…