Mariannette Miller-Meeks Urges Improvements To 'Delicate Dance' Of Organ Procurement Policies

5 months ago

During a House Energy Committee hearing before the Congressional Recess, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IO) spoke about the procurement of organs for life-saving procedures.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I want to thank our witnesses. If you were here in the

00:05first panel, you heard about my unique perspective in this matter, but I'm going to repeat it.

00:12So I started my career as a nurse. So after having done med-surg nursing and emergency room

00:21nursing, as a newly minted lieutenant stationed at Walter Reed, I was placed on a neurosurgery

00:27floor. And we had a variety of patients, patients who were comatose from traumatic brain injury,

00:33patients who had ruptured aneurysms, strokes or hemorrhagic strokes. And it was left to the nurse

00:41to have these very difficult conversations with family members, whether or not to remove their

00:47family member from life support and how to navigate and support that family. And then the secondary

00:53conversation of whether they would be an organ donor. That held me very well as I went on to

01:00medicine and medical school and did emergency room trauma surgery. I did a general surgery internship,

01:07even though I was going into ophthalmology, was on the transplant service. So again, as the intern,

01:13having these conversations with family members in a system that did not exist then as it does today.

01:20And very challenging to talk to family members about removing an individual from life support,

01:29that they're given all the medical knowledge that we had and that belief in God that they were not

01:35going to recover. And then to secondarily have conversations about donating organs. We certainly

01:43have progressed since then. You have advanced directives. You have conversations with family,

01:49not enough. On our license, driver's license, you can elect to donate. And then as an ophthalmologist,

01:58performing transplants for vision. And I can tell you how grateful individuals are, how parents are for

02:06their child who has an inherited disease and can't see, to then see. Adults who have traumatic injuries

02:13from chemicals, alkali burns, before we had stem cells, which we can now also transplant. And then

02:20those with keratoconus or other inheritable eye diseases. And to be part of that network of giving

02:26vision and in fact, giving life. And that requires trust. And it requires trust of those who donate,

02:33the family members who have to make that decision in the absence of consciousness for their loved one.

02:40And then in those that receive organs, knowing that they came from a place of appreciation,

02:46gratitude, and love. So there's a trust within this system that I think is extraordinarily important

02:51for all of us. Not a new concept, but this merging and arrangement of the, in September 2023,

03:02securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act, when it was signed into

03:08law, is to help with this disparity of education, communication, involving people so that there

03:18are more organs available to save lives and to save vision. And so I would just say, having been

03:27in medicine and in this, the first thing you want to do is admit you have a problem.

03:34You want to acknowledge that problem and you want to offer solutions.

03:37So Dr. McBride and Dr. Formica, I appreciate you offering solutions. I think what's imperative

03:44is that UNIS, OPTN, HRSA, and CMS all come together and develop those standards.

03:53We know that if somebody is an addict and overdoses, that brain function can be altered by the medications

04:05that they may have been on or sedatives. And this delicate dance that we do, and I call

04:10it a dance and it's the wrong word, but this conversation we have with family so that we

04:16can help to continue that trust. Strongly support what you're doing, but I'd like the commitment

04:22from all of you that you will work to have these conversations where there does not even need to be

04:28congressional action. That you will work with HRSA, CMS, to bring this system together to have the

04:35appropriate standards and guidelines in place so that families, patients, and those who are transplanting

04:41and nurses working in that area have the assurance that that will occur. Dr. Molesta?

04:48Absolutely. And thank you for everything that you did in support of donation and making sure

04:52those people receive their second chance. Dr. McBride?

04:56Absolutely. Thank you, Congresswoman, for everything.

04:58Dr. Formica? I agree with you completely.

05:01Absolutely. And if we need more help, we're coming to you.

05:04Thank you. And thank you for the suggestions that you gave us and recommendations that we can act upon.

05:08Thank you. I yield back.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks Urges Improvements To 'Delicate Dance' Of Organ Procurement Policies

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