History of Alcohol Abuse

Discouraging the possibility of a person being denied a transplant because of a history of substance abuse on multiple occasions. If a person has a history of drinking, they may be denied a liver. That makes sense on paper. However, in practice, it is frequently discriminatory.

Due to her history of alcohol abuse, an indigenous Canadian woman was denied a liver transplant. It was suspected that acetaminophen had caused her liver damage, and despite having a drinking problem in the past, she appeared to be sober at the time she needed the surgery. Nonetheless, she was turned down.

An indigenous man from British Columbia was also denied after failing to meet the province's six-month abstinence policy for those in need of a liver. Indigenous Canadians have disproportionately high rates of alcoholism in their communities as a result of a variety of systemic conditions, including residential school abuse, poverty, and racist policies that have severely impacted their ability to thrive and even survive in Canada. On those grounds, the abstinence requirement was challenged as discriminatory.

The policy was allegedly repealed in 2018, but the case just mentioned occurred in 2019. The transplant board ruled that this was an error, and the man was reinstated on the transplant waiting list.