General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I can't believe this: To get on Heart Transplant list, one needs to be nicotine free 6 months. [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,055 posts)Once you are on the list, you are eligible for a transplant that day - they don't maintain a separate listed but not yet eligible for transplant list. It is challenging enough to juggle imminent death crises (which make you eligible for broader than local organs), with limiting the distance donor organs travel, with the urgency to move quickly once an organ is available, and tissue/blood matching matching, etc. How long you wait has nothing to do with how long you have been on the list, so there is not even any point in getting on the list until you are eligible to be transplanted. Who gets the organ is based on which (of the potential recipients who match) is most likely to die if they don't get this heart. At least with livers that is a very complex sorting process - without adding in people who could not be given a heart that day, even if they were the closest to death.