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                    WOMAN TRIES TO SELL KIDNEY TO PAY BILL
                                       
      sparrow May 22, 1997
     Web posted at: 10:59 a.m. EDT (1459 GMT)
     
     ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CNN) -- Faced with a $25,000 bill for gall
     bladder surgery, a Florida woman placed an ad in a local newspaper
     to sell her kidney to cover the surgery. But there's a big problem
     with her plan: It's illegal.
     
     "KIDNEY Runs good, Taking offers. $30,000/obo," read the
     advertisement in this week's St. Petersburg Times.
     
     Ruth Sparrow isn't joking either. She has been drinking buckets of
     water for more than two months to clean out the organ, prepping it
     for donation.
     
     "I'm not doing it for a profit," she told CNN-affiliate WTVT in
     Tampa. "You're trading a damn kidney for a gall bladder." icon
     (85K/6 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)
     
     Sparrow, a 55-year-old nurse, said she told doctors before the
     surgery that she would be unable to pay the bill and offered to pay
     the bill by donating her kidney. The offer was refused, she said.
     movie icon (331K/28 sec. QuickTime movie)
     
     Federal and state laws prohibit anyone from offering buy or sell a
     human organ or tissue. In Florida, the offense is a second-degree
     felony. medical.center
     
     Jean Layne of Lifelink of Florida, a tissue recovery organization,
     explained that the reason for the law is "not to disadvantage
     families who do not have a lot of money, allowing everyone equal
     access to transplantation."
     
     Bayfront Medical Center, where the gall bladder surgery was
     performed, was stunned when notified of the ad. It said Sparrow owes
     about $17,000 on the bill and that the medical center is "trying to
     get her qualified for some type of assistance."
     
     Sparrow dropped her medical insurance four years ago because she
     could not afford the $4,000-a-year premium.
     
     She said it's unfair that taxpayers pick up the tab for criminals'
     medical expenses, while she could get punished for her tactic. icon
     (145K/12 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) She also emphasized that she did
     not know it was illegal to run the ad.
     
     "I just want to live in my own little hovel and pay my bills like
     everybody else," she said. "I don't want to owe anybody."
     
     From CNN-affiliate WTVT Reporter Stan Jayson  
     rule CNN Plus 
     * Consumer News - Fitness and Health
       
  Related story:
  
     * Florida man offers to 'lease' a kidney - April 2, 1997
       
  Related sites:
  
     Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
     * The St. Petersburg Times
     * Bayfront Medical Center
     * United Network for Organ Sharing Transplantation Information Site
     * American Share Foundation - organ donation and transplantation
       information
       
     
     
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