Widow Challenges Liver Transplant Policy

The widow of a man who died two weeks after being diagnosed with acute alcoholic hepatitis is planning a constitutional challenge to a Canadian policy which requires patients in need of a liver transplant to abstain from drinking for six months before they are eligible. “I believe that if doctors have a patient whose life they can save and they have a donor who’s willing to give, that they have an obligation [to save their life],” Debra Selkirk said during an interview with CBC Radio. Selkirk plans to use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to argue that the six-month policy discriminates against patients who suffer from alcoholism and contravenes Canadians’ right to universal access to health care.