June 5th, 2013

Sarah Murnaghan’s mother on adult lung transplant for her 10-year-old daughter: “Now we have hope. We have a lot of hope.”

Sarah Murnaghan’s mother, Janet Murnaghan spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the decision of a Federal judge today in Philadelphia to allow her 10-year-old daughter to receive an adult lung transplant.  A full transcript from this interview will be posted on http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/sitroom.html.

PLEASE CREDIT: CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer”

THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. IT MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JANET MURNAGHAN, SARAH’S MOTHER (on the phone):  “Oh, we are just thrilled over here.  We are thrilled for Sarah, because she’s been getting sicker by the day, and we’ve had really two rough days here.  And it’s been a little stressful.  Now we have hope.  We have a lot of hope.  

And you know what, we have another little guy in this hospital who is in the same boat as Sarah.  He’s not quite as sick, but he’s 11 years old.  And he was wanting and needing a lobar transplant like Sarah, and was in the same position.  And now our lawyers are speaking with him and he should be getting the 10-day under-12 exemption, too.  So it’s really exciting news over here.….

And so I don’t know why they’ve left the babies out of the equation, but we’re real excited here.  We feel like it’s a little victory.  We’re going to keep moving forward.  We want this for all kids.

Visit http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/sitroom.html for a full transcript of this interview.

BLITZER:  — 0 percent versus 75 percent.  Those are pretty significant —

MURNAGHAN:  When you triage — yes, when you assess people based on how sick they are, it makes a lot of good sense.  You know, you give it to the sickest people first, and you let the people who can wait, wait.  And more people live under a system like that.  And OBTN (ph) and their system has proven that for the over-12 set, that, since they instituted severity first, more people have lived.

And so I don’t know why they’ve left the babies out of the equation, but we’re real excited here.  We feel like it’s a little victory.  We’re going to keep moving forward.  We want this for all kids.

BLITZER:  Have you had any direct contact with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius?

MURNAGHAN:  No, yesterday she (inaudible) a little email tag, where she kept scheduling meetings with me and canceling them and never came to anything.

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