New Zealand Man Okayed for Liver-Small Bowel Transplant in Canada

A 31-year-old New Zealand man dying of liver failure has been given a half-million-dollar chance for life-saving transplant surgery.

Scott Large, of Christchurch, has been approved by a Health Ministry advisory group that weighs unusual medical treatments to travel to Toronto where the government will pay for a liver-small bowel transplant.

"I'm grateful. The doctors have just been unreal," Large said from his Christchurch Hospital bed. "I'm 31 but I feel like I'm 61." Large has been battling Crohn's disease, an incurable inflammatory condition that eats away the gut, since he was a teenager.

Crohn's strikes about one in every thousand people. Most can control the disease with medication. Most of his small bowel has had to be removed, leaving him unable to absorb essential nutrients from everyday food. The disease also is destroying his liver.

No hospital performs liver-small bowel transplants in New Zealand. He will be placed on a waiting list for the operation in Canada.

Other sources: New Zealand Press Association