Letters to the Editor is a periodic characteristic. We welcome all comments and can publish a range. We edit for size and readability and require full names.
A reporter at Just the News shared our article a couple of man whose organs have been practically harvested whereas he was nonetheless alive:
Disinformed consent is normal working process within the organ donation business. And a lot of drugs. “The sisters said hospital staffers told them the movements were involuntary.”https://t.co/tDSp4oCNgL
— Greg Piper (@gregpiper) September 13, 2025
— Greg Piper, Washington, D.C.
Too Close a Call With Organ Donation
When I used to be a third-year med scholar doing a rotation on the trauma surgical procedure crew, we had a affected person within the surgical intensive care unit who had arrived 12 hours earlier with bullet holes in his stomach. We labored to stabilize him all evening; the subsequent day, he was nonetheless alive.
The crew decided, nonetheless, that though his physique was alive, he was seemingly brain-dead and a candidate for organ donations (“A Surgical Team Was About To Harvest This Man’s Organs — Until His Doctor Intervened,” Sept. 12).
As we ready for him to develop into a donor, I observed he had a little bit of motion. Of course, I used to be the unknowing third-year med scholar, so my feedback have been basically deemed a nuisance, at greatest, to the crew. (I used to be, by the best way, already a globally acknowledged researcher in a area distant from trauma surgical procedure.)
Nevertheless, after checking on the affected person, I advised one of many surgeons, “I think he was trying to communicate with us.”
I used to be advised it was simply spinal reflex and I didn’t know what I used to be .
I couldn’t shake the sensation. I used to be deeply involved that I knew what I noticed, and it appeared like communication. After our rounds, I went again as much as the affected person’s bedside, stood over him, and easily stated, “Are you able to hear me?”
With a tube in his trachea, stopping any air from getting into or exiting (required to make sounds with the vocal cords), he tried to speak one thing in response. The poor man had an endotracheal tube and was on a ventilator, however as a result of he was given a prognosis of being brain-dead, he was not being supplied with applicable ache meds and was out and in of consciousness — as greatest as I may inform.
I requested him once more if he may hear me, and once more he tried to speak with the tube in his throat. It was clear he was completely not brain-dead.
I ran and bought the crew. They evaluated him once more — after having already spoken in entrance of each him and his household about harvesting his organs. This time, the surgeon made a extra thorough analysis. It turned out that he was awake and conscious. As they seemed him over, they realized he didn’t have bullet holes solely in his stomach; he had a bullet gap by means of the again of his cranium, the bullet nonetheless lodged in his mind. During the examination, somebody had lifted his head to find a small, spherical pool of blood beneath. The bullet in his head went completely unnoticed within the chaos of attempting to stabilize his far more extreme hemorrhages.
A CT scan confirmed the bullet clearly, lodged in the course of his mind. The neurosurgery crew did a process to scale back the swelling and stress in his cranium, and he sprang again to life.
The younger man, absolutely a sufferer of gang violence in South Atlanta, started to work together nearly usually together with his household over the approaching days. For his household, it was nearly a rebirth of their baby. He had heard all the dialog about harvesting his organs however may do basically nothing. It turned out his mind loss of life was documented when he was nonetheless beneath anesthesia, masking his conscience and application that may finally return.
Unfortunately, after an elated two or three days, the person in the end succumbed to his mind damage.
Still, I’ll by no means, ever overlook how horrible that have will need to have been for him, and, truthfully, I don’t know what would have occurred if some “naive” third-year med scholar hadn’t pushed to get the significantly busier surgical procedure crew to totally acknowledge what was occurring with their affected person.
I deeply admire your writing, and I hope it’s elevating important consciousness.
And I say this as somebody with a right away member of the family on a number of transplant lists: While I would like desperately for lists to maneuver quicker, it ought to by no means occur on the expense of offering the whole and full dignity that each life deserves.
— Michael J. Mina, Boston
A radiologist in Denver additionally posted his ideas concerning the article on the social platform X:
This may be very uncommon on this planet of transplant surgical procedure. But it needs to be “never”, moderately than “rare”.https://t.co/yJ3BZkLXND
— Paul Hsieh (@PaulHsieh) September 14, 2025
— Paul Hsieh, Denver
Speaking for Kids With Disabilities
I learn the article “Parents Fear Losing Disability Protections as Trump Slashes Civil Rights Office” (Sept. 15) with a renewed sense of objective. Efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education could also be imprudent at greatest, with little or no consideration for the potential that lies inside all of us. I do know, as a result of I grew to become a recipient of its particular training providers after flipping over on my three-wheel bike and touchdown on my head with the bike over me. I used to be barely 18 years outdated and never sporting a helmet. I used to be in a coma for every week and remained in an acute care hospital for a month. I sustained a extreme traumatic mind damage — or, to be extra exact, a extreme cerebral contusion.
I want the architects of this federal dismantling may know that I obtained rehabilitation remedy for over a yr and obtained providers by means of a particular training program for greater than six years earlier than I graduated with a four-year bachelor’s diploma from San Diego State University. I continued on to graduate college and earned two grasp’s levels from the University of Southern California.
I established a 30-year profession — beginning as a lobbyist for the National Association of Social Workers in Washington, D.C., earlier than returning to my house state to complete my profession as a analysis scientist for the California Department of Public Health’s Maternal and Child Health Division. I labored there for 16 years earlier than my retirement in 2020.
We — as youngsters with disabilities — have a lot to supply to society that can not be foreseen after we are younger. I’m the product of devoted care by my therapists and lecturers. This is what I consider the present president and elected officers throughout the nation want to know. We will be productive residents when given the prospect to thrive.
— Brason Lee, Sacramento, California
A Democratic member of Congress weighs in on X:
Disabled children are going through nice challenges of their faculties, and the dismantling of the Department of Education will solely worsen these struggles. It is significant we help our college students of all backgrounds.https://t.co/pN1cAnRXOd
— Grace Meng (@Grace4NY) September 17, 2025
— Grace Meng, Queens borough of New York City
A Hole in ‘Big Loopholes’?
The article “Big Loopholes in Hospital Charity Care Programs Mean Patients Still Get Stuck With the Tab” (Sept. 25) by Michelle Andrews had one obvious omission: The hospitals are supported by authorities funding for charity care, however personal observe suppliers — such because the specialists in emergency medication, anesthesiology, and radiology who have been talked about — should not. Do you count on these suppliers to work at no cost? I believe, to be honest to medical doctors, there ought to have been a point out of that within the article.
— Roger Broome, Galena, Ohio
A science author in New York shared her ideas on X about our protection of Trump administration insurance policies:
These clinics have been already stretched skinny earlier than the brand new steerage. That appears unlikely to vary given the key staffing cuts at HRSA, which directs funding to neighborhood clinics and different HHS applications. H/t @sjtribble and @HMLLarweh at @KFFHealthNews https://t.co/ngit8sP9X8
— lauren schneider (@laur_insider) August 8, 2025
— Lauren Schneider, New York City
When HRSA Hurts, Nursing Suffers
The Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, is vitally essential to constructing and sustaining the energy of the pipeline of latest nurses and different clinicians getting into our well being care workforce. With a rising well being care scarcity throughout the nation, it’s extremely essential that HRSA be maintained and strengthened to fulfill the rising and extra difficult well being care challenges of tomorrow (“Deep Staff Cuts at a Little-Known Federal Agency Pose Trouble for Droves of Local Health Programs,” Aug. 1).
One of HRSA’s most essential tasks is managing Nursing Workforce Development Programs beneath Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act. These grants help fund everything from training to observe, recruitment, and retention, significantly in rural and underserved communities. As each a nurse and nurse educator myself, I’ve seen how, for many years, Title VIII applications have strengthened the pipeline by overlaying scholarships and training to help registered nurses, superior observe nurses, and nurse educators.
As the U.S. inhabitants quickly ages and develops more and more complicated well being care wants, we should guarantee we’ve got a strong workforce outfitted to supply high-quality care in each neighborhood. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tasks a mean shortfall of roughly 190,000 registered nurses annually from 2024 to 2034. Complicating this subject, school shortages, restricted scientific websites, and capability constraints pressured nursing faculties to turn away over 80,000 qualified applications final yr alone.
Our nation should do extra to graduate sufficient college students to shut these gaps. Maintaining funding and staffing for HRSA is crucial to maintain a strong well being care workforce and guarantee sufferers’ entry to care nationwide.
Policymakers should defend and totally applicable HRSA within the 2026 funds and past. There are numerous passionate, good, and devoted learners on the market able to step into the roles of nurse and nurse educator. We should defend HRSA to open pathways for them to get there.
— Patty Knecht, chief nursing officer of Ascend Learning/ATI Nursing Education, Downingtown, Pennsylvania
A Michigan reader expresses his opinion succinctly on social media:
Make America Ill Againhttps://t.co/DPFJtfB0fl
— Paul Hughes-Cromwick (Pooge) (@cromwick) August 1, 2025
— Paul Hughes-Cromwick, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Keeping PACE With Vulnerable Seniors
Elder homelessness is likely one of the clearest signs of our damaged senior care system, as highlighted within the current article “Health Care Groups Aim To Counter Growing ‘National Scandal’ of Elder Homelessness” (Aug. 18). Today, too many seniors are strolling a tightrope, threatened to be tipped off stability when monetary or medical points come up.
This threat of homelessness is particularly prevalent in rural communities, the place older adults usually have decrease incomes, larger poverty charges, and larger prevalence of persistent sickness. And whereas homelessness nationwide rose by lower than 1% from 2020 to 2022, rural areas noticed practically a 6% enhance — clear proof that rural neighborhood members are being left behind by our present system.
Thankfully, the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE, is uniquely outfitted to handle these challenges. Often, rural PACE applications like ours encounter members struggling to get by means of the winter with out warmth, residing in properties with leaky roofs, or missing protected wheelchair entry. In these eventualities, we are able to authorize heating set up, organize pressing repairs, or construct ramps that make it attainable for our members to stay safely at house.
These are just some of the various examples that reveal how far PACE suppliers can, and do, go to make sure our members can keep of their properties. And, by addressing these points early, this system is saving Medicaid dollars.
To scale back housing instability amongst older adults, policymakers at each the state and federal ranges ought to develop eligibility and be sure that PACE suppliers have the pliability to behave shortly when warning indicators seem. By investing in PACE, we are able to scale back homelessness and construct a stronger mannequin for community-based care in America.
— Craig Worland, interim CEO and COO of One Senior Care, Erie, Pennsylvania
Saw point out of an concept on Facebook a few days in the past after which learn your PACE article about senior housing and felt compelled to share. Please cross alongside to your PACE colleagues and anybody else who may also help make this attainable. The concept was/is to transform the various closed malls, procuring facilities, and big-box shops throughout the U.S. into inexpensive housing. Rather than go away them as empty eyesores, decaying and changing into havens for vermin and worse, moderately than looking for and fund land purchases and constructing from scratch, simply suppose what number of hundreds of individuals may very well be housed! Some areas may very well be reserved for important providers — groceries, drugstores, espresso outlets, eating places, salon/barber outlets, laundry/dry cleaners, and many others. Recreate nature with a strolling path full with reside bushes and crops, and paint the ceiling just like the Wienermobile, the place “the sky is always blue!” The prospects are infinite. Go for it! Thanks for the chance to share. I’ll be out right here advocating and awaiting this to blossom!
— Brenda Peters, Charlotte, North Carolina
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working applications at KFF—an impartial supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Learn extra about KFF.
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