From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— The UW Health Transplant Center performed 134 liver transplants last year, setting a new program record and exceeding the prior year’s total by 23%.
UW Health today released 2025 figures for its transplant center in Madison, which performed at least 520 adult and pediatric organ transplants last year. Melissa Roberts, the center’s executive director, says that’s more than all of Wisconsin’s other transplant centers combined.
“We are proud to be Wisconsin’s transplant leader,” she said in the release. “This achievement is a direct result of the remarkable care and dedication of our entire team as well as the generosity of organ donors and their families.”
In addition to the record number of liver transplants, the center also performed a record-high 67 lung transplants last year, as well as 273 kidney transplants, 24 heart transplants, 21 kidney and pancreas transplants together, eight pancreas transplants alone and one heart-lung transplant.
UW Health says its transplant program is one of few in the country that can do a lung transplant and heart bypass surgery during the same procedure. The center performed eight of these procedures last year.
Along with the procedure totals for last year, UW Health is also touting its wait times for organ transplants, noting they’re “consistently shorter than the national average” for every type of procedure.
Dr. Dixon Kaufman is the center’s director and a professor of surgery at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. He says kidney transplant patients have a median wait time of 13.2 months at UW Health, compared to the national average of 27.4 months.
“When more than 90,000 people are in need of a new kidney, every month matters,” he said.
See the release below.
— Wisconsin Right to Life argued more protections for children are needed while testifying in support of a twice-vetoed GOP proposal to impose criminal penalties on doctors who fail to provide care if a baby is born alive following an attempted abortion.
Gracie Skogman, legislative director for the anti-abortion group, was the only person to testify on the bill at yesterday’s Senate Health Committee hearing.
Current law affords children born alive as a result of an abortion the same legal status and rights as a human at any point after they undergo a live birth as a result of natural or induced labor or a cesarean section. Skogman argued those protections aren’t enough.
She pointed to the case of Iowan Melissa Ohden, who survived after her then 19-year-old mother underwent a failed saline infusion abortion administered by her grandmother, as one example. Skogman did not provide any specific Wisconsin examples.
“These cases make it clear that children born alive following a failed abortion are in need of further legal protection and care. This legislation does not deny women access to abortion, it’s simply establishing protections owed to a child born alive after a failed abortion,” Skogman said.
SB 384 would also make intentionally causing the death of a child born alive as a result of an abortion a felony punishable by life in prison. The bill exempts mothers from being punished for violations of its provisions. Dem Gov. Tony Evers vetoed identical bills in 2019 and 2021.
The Wisconsin Academy of Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists-WI Section, League of Women Voters Wisconsin and Pro-Life Wisconsin oppose the legislation. Pro-Life Wisconsin has opposed the bill in the past due to concerns the exemption for mothers could undermine current law against infanticide.
— Two Dem members of the state’s congressional delegation are seeking to create new mental health and addiction treatment coverage requirements for certain health plans.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Madison and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee have introduced the federal Mental Health and Making Access More Affordable Act, which they say would improve health care access for pregnant women and postpartum mothers.
The bill would require commercial, state/local government and federal employee health benefits plans that provide mental health or addiction care to cover them with no cost-sharing from the start of pregnancy care through the first year postpartum, according to an overview from Baldwin’s office.
It would also extend existing protections to ensure patients don’t lose coverage or access to providers when their plan networks change during pregnancy or soon after, the release notes.
Baldwin calls it “commonsense” legislation, noting many expecting and new mothers can’t get mental health care and addiction help during this “extremely difficult” time. And Moore says the cost of care is one of the biggest hurdles to getting treatment, especially for people of color and those with low incomes.
“The Mental Health and MAMA Act will help break down those barriers, so that mothers, parents, and caregivers can get the support they need, when they need it most,” she said in a statement.
See the release below.
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Press Releases
– UW Health: Transplant center leads Wisconsin in transplants in 2025
