Scot Pollard had grown so accustomed to his weak and failing heart that he didn’t realize how close he was to dying, he said a day after he was released from the hospital and two weeks after he received a heart transplant.
The Indiana Donor Network, which serves 85 of Indiana’s 92 counties, is booming with a record number of registered donors and transplanted organs.
At 6-foot-11, former Indiana Pacers center Scot Pollard’s size helped him play more than a decade in the NBA, earning him a championship ring with the 2008 Boston Celtics. Now, it might be killing him.
The move marks the end of Fort Wayne-based Lutheran Hospital’s transplant program. It had stopped performing kidney transplants several years ago.
The government announced plans Wednesday to overhaul the troubled U.S. organ transplant system, including breaking up the monopoly power of the not-for-profit organization that has run it for the past 37 years.
The system for getting donated kidneys, livers and hearts to desperately ill patients relies on out-of-date technology, according to a confidential government review obtained by The Washington Post.
The Virginia-based firm said Tuesday it has invested $18 million to set up a 70,000-square-foot biologics logistics center near the Indianapolis International Airport. It is currently hiring managers and technicians.
The number of transplants performed in Indiana last year hit an 11-year high, up about 6 percent from a year before, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
