<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">The title of the article in the Journal of Medical Ethics asks this question.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">[1]</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">The authors from the University of Montreal consider this subject while the topic of “illegal aliens” or foreign nationals (FN’s) has been a hot topic in the United States.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">They however attempt to answer the problem from an international perspective.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">The FN that we hear about is usually in the country illegally, but may be in the country as a legal non-citizen, visitor, non-permeant resident, refuge claimant, resettled refugee and in rare cases a person detained by the government.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">A patient who arrives at the emergency room requiring hemodialysis would likely rapidly be started on renal replacement therapy.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">This is an emergency and since this is considered, an emergency there would likely not be a question about the provision of such therapy. What then about transplantation of a kidney?</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">Is renal transplantation an emergency treatment?</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">We usually consider transplantation to be a more economical form of treatment of the acute renal failure in the end, but the lack of long term funding for medical care of the FN puts a different spin on the subject. It is not just the procurement of the organ and the surgery but also provision of and management of the immunotherapy necessary to prevent rejection of the kidney and the technology to manage the therapy.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">A foreign national that returns to their home country where there is not an infrastructure that can provide the drug therapy or monitoring will reject the kidney.</span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;">There is a national issue of financing the care and the ethical and national issues of obtaining the organ.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px;"><strong style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px; color: #34405b; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000099;" href="/Academic/bioethics/index.cfm">website</a>.</strong><span style="line-height: 19.0400009155273px; color: #34405b; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p>
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