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Oregon agonises over kidney transplant for death-row inmate
Should death-row prisoners get the same medical care as law-abiding citizens?
A death row prisoner in Oregon who has kidney disease could receive a transplant ahead of thousands of other patients because the operation would save the state money.
Horacio Reyes-Camarena was found guilty of stabbing an 18-year-old woman to death in 1996. His appeal could take another decade.
Reyes-Camarena's dialysis costs $US120,000 ($A184,000) a year, so a transplant, at $100,000, would represent a saving for a state facing a budget crisis. "If they offer it to me, I'll take it but I never want to ask for a kidney," he said.
"I'm on death row now. Some day, if it got allowed, I'm going to go through appeals and then the man (the executioner) has to do his job. Why take it with me?"
He added: "I know people on the outside. They need things
and they don't get it. Sometimes being here is better." The health of prisoners
on death row has long been the subject of public debate. Many of the inmates are
elderly because the appeal process takes so long, and need expensive treatment.