Your Wretchedness Makes You A Poor Candidate To Live

Effluvia

How much would it suck to be a disabled kid in foster care, with little hope of placement in a stable home? Well, it might suck so much that they won't give you a liver transplant because your circumstances are so hopeless.

A disabled foster child whose liver is failing has been removed from a Central Florida hospital's organ-transplant waiting list because hospital administrators fear the state's shaky child-welfare system cannot ensure he has a permanent home in which to recover.

Shands Hospital in Gainesville removed the boy, 15, from a waiting list for organ recipients after administrators determined the boy's unstable living conditions make him a poor candidate for a transplant, said Nick Cox, the Department of Children & Families regional administrator in the Tampa Bay area, where the boy lives.

Jesus, that's bleak.

The boy has had a difficult life, even for a foster child.

Removed from his mother at infancy because she could not kick a crack cocaine habit, the teen had been living with relatives under DCF supervision until about a year ago, when his relatives were unable to continue caring for him. Since then, he has been in foster care in the Tampa Bay area.

That sucks. Here I was under the impression that Florida had so many extra adoptive parents that it was turning them away.

Last 5 posts by Ken White

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Patrick  •  Jul 9, 2008 @8:17 am

    I hear that in California you have so many spare livers that organized criminals are deemed acceptable risks for transplant.

    You really should share.

  2. Jag  •  Jul 9, 2008 @8:51 am

    This state (FL) is really just a sad, pathetic mess.

    Another person was recently killed near where I work under the new "Stand Your Ground Law" which removes the duty to retreat before using lethal violence.

    The guy was killed due to an argument over a $200 fender bender.

  3. Ansley  •  Jul 9, 2008 @12:18 pm

    The system isn't broken, Ken- Really!