Postmortems on the transplant scandal

Re “Hospital Halts Organ Program,” Sept. 27

The scandal at St. Vincent Medical Center is just one more example of why profit needs to be taken out of healthcare, even in a supposed nonprofit hospital. In a country where tens of millions cannot afford health insurance, where healthcare costs are the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy, where drug companies boast obscene profits and where public hospitals are forced to shut their doors for lack of funds, it is horrific yet not surprising that body parts are sold to the highest bidder.

Ethics committees are not enough. The only way to truly safeguard our nation’s health is by ensuring that everyone, regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic status, has equal access to equal care through a universal single-payer healthcare system based on one high standard of care.

ROSE ANN DEMORO

Executive Director

California Nurses Assn.

Oakland

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You hate to see doctors breaking the rules and playing God with other people’s organs when life and death hang in the balance.

But which is more absurd: substituting one Saudi national for another patient atop the list, or endangering 75 people in need of organs by halting the transplant program altogether?

It seems the powerful people who dictate who lives and who dies are quick to reaffirm their authority and slow to consider those waiting and suffering.

TRAPIER K. MICHAEL

Nashville