Since it is almost Halloween, I decided to learn more about
the scariest thing I know-- the messed up state
of our organ transplant system.
Take a look, if you dare.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Everything I know about organ transplants
comes from horror movies.
It's alive!
SAMANTHA BEE: Turns out, it's our nightmare donation system
that really belongs in one.
22 people die every day in the United States
waiting for a transplant.
100,000 people are waiting for organs every year,
and there's only 16,000 donors.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): Things are so bad, people are
even turning to social media and billboards
to find organs faster.
So I went to this definitely-haunted building
to find out more about the twisted system
at the heart of our nation's organ crisis.
It's a Halloween field piece.
I hear someone died in this very hallway.
[MOANS]
It's a hospital, Samantha.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): Fine.
Donna Crier is the CEO of the Global Liver Institute,
and herself a liver transplant recipient.
How are we doing when it comes to organ donations?
Not well.
The system is broken.
You know, since my own transplant,
more than 200,000 people have either died waiting on a list
or been deemed too sick to transplant.
How does the system work?
Didn't you draw this?
[GASPS] No.
But it does convey a lot of good information.
Here's how organ donation works.
Let's say there's a potential donor.
Aw.
Their organs are recovered by agencies
called Organ Procurement Organizations, or OPOs.
Contracted by the government, the OPOs
send the organs to transplant centers who
get them to waiting recipients.
OPOs are basically the middlemen of organ donation,
like Amazon for your organs.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): Don't get any ideas, Bezos.
So it's the OPO that is the key between the potential donor
and the person receiving the organ.
Yes.
If an OPO isn't performing well, organs go unrecovered.
People who were waiting die waiting.
So that failure matters.
How do we know which OPOs are performing well
and which ones are not?
We really don't.
It's a self-reporting process.
It's like people grading their own report cards.
So we have to take their word for it
that they're doing a great job.
That's like me reporting on my own TV ratings.
Right.
My 82 million viewers are not gonna like this story one bit.
And you shouldn't, because despite their glowing
self-assessments, studies show that OPO performance
in some regions is actually terrifyingly low,
like "Leprechaun" ratings low.
And both should be higher.
I want me gold coin.
[SCREAMS]
Organ transplantation saved my life.
There are organ procurement organizations
that do a great job.
If we were able to hold everybody to that standard,
we would save tens of thousands more lives every year.
You are so right.
We could solve this.
Let's split up and figure it out.
I'll follow these spooky noises down there.
You go down that abandoned hallway,
and we'll meet up after.
Bye.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): OK.
Some OPOs are good-- oh--
and some are really bad.
Ugh.
And it would appear the solution is down this bloody hallway.
OK, here we go.
Hello?
Is anybody there who knows how to solve the organ crisis?
BOTH: Even the worst OPOs keep their government contracts,
Sam, forever and ever and ever.
[SCREAMS]
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
[SHRIEKS]
Oh, hi.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): This is Melissa Bean.
She worked for an OPO.
And what she saw there was so terrifying,
she became a whistleblower.
So what drove you to leave the OPO
and speak up about what you saw?
MELISSA BEAN: You know, the stakes are life and death.
I've been at the bedside of patients who died waiting.
They stay with me, and that's really why I am
coming forward and speaking up.
So why hasn't the system changed?
Well, there's a natural yuck factor
when talking about death.
So this horror movie parody probably isn't helping, right?
Definitely not.
What needs to happen is reform and everyone
being an organ donor.
Both of those combined would go a long way
towards saving a lot of lives.
So reform and people signing up to donate.
Yes.
There is so much misinformation
around organ donation.
Let me run through some myths.
If you're unconscious and you arrive at the emergency room,
that there's just people standing around like, mm.
That is not true.
I started my career in the emergency department,
and I can speak from experience that that does not happen.
OK.
Is it true that they sew your mouth
to someone's butt and then someone else's mouth
to another butt?
It's just mouth to butt to mouth to butt to mouth
to butt all the way down.
No? OK.
SAMANTHA BEE (VOICEOVER): Glad we cleared that up.
Now, where do we stand on that reform?
Well, the government needs to come in
and hold OPOs accountable.
Todd Young has a bill in the Senate.
Mhm.
And President Trump signed an executive order
to reform metrics for organ procurement organizations.
What?
The kidney has a very special place in the heart.
Plot twist.
President Trump did something that I agree with.
[LAUGHS NERVOUSLY]
Did not see that one coming.
Don't let this gall bladder of a human be better than you.
Register to donate at organize.org.
Call your senators and tell them to support Todd Young's bill
and Trump's executive-- oh, no.
[SCREAMING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]