Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) Thursday announced that he will soon introduce legislation that would ban hospitals in New Jersey from declining to perform an organ transplant on someone simply because they have a developmental disability.
The legislation comes in the wake of an incident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where a Camden County family was allegedly told that their 3-year-old daughter would not be eligible for a kidney transplant because she is “mentally retarded.”
“There is no doubt that this story has highlighted a seriously overlooked issue in the country: Hospital policy regarding organ transplants for people with developmental disabilities,” Sweeney said. “People with developmental disabilities should not be treated as second-class citizens. Their disabilities do not make them any less human or worthy of respect and common decency. I will immediately be putting forward legislation that would prevent this kind of treatment from ever happening to someone who seeks care at a hospital in New Jersey.”
0 COMMENTS:
Post a Comment