As George Best recovers in hospital, the issue over whether people who habitually abuse their bodies should benefit from NHS-funded life-saving treatment has been raised again. Health Reporter Emma Brady reports...

It is one of the most difficult decisions a family faces after losing a loved one: Should they agree to donate the person?s organs?

While figures published by UK Transplant this week reveal a record number of transplants took place between April and August this year, there is still a critical shortage of organs.

About 8,000 people are still waiting for a donor heart, liver or kidney in Britain ? but more than 400 die each year without receiving a life-saving organ.

So it is understandable that relatives feel angered and aggrieved that their act of altruism is abused by recipients who continue to abuse their bodies.

Footballing legend George Best, who had a lifesaving liver-transplant in July 2002, has long been rumoured to have stuck to a diet of white wine and brandy.

This week he returned to the Cromwell Hospital in London ? where liver specialist Nigel Heaton carried out the former Manchester United star?s operation ? with a kidney infection.

Although doctors have been quick to point out his infection was not alcohol-related, this has raised the issue of whether those who habitually abuse their bodies should benefit from NHS treatment.

More organs are being donated but the harsh reality is there are still not enough to around, and livers are particularly hard hit.

However, it must be recognised that for many patients their condition may be beyond their control rather than selfinflicted, but health workers find themselves duty bound to treat all patients equally.

At present the criteria followed by NHS transplant coordinators does not take a patient?s lifestyle ? or vices ? into consideration.

What do you think? Click here to send us an email or here to visit our messageboard

The factors ranked in importance are compatible blood group, size, clinical need and waiting list ? who has been waiting longest.

Pete Ashcroft, a transplant co-ordinator for University Hospital of Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), said: ?If there were two patients both in need of a transplant: one who abused their body and one who didn?t they would be judged on the following not on their background of whether they have damaged their bodies.

?If a kidney comes in at the same time, both are a match of blood group and size, it would then be purely down to clinical need and the waiting list.?

Liver transplants are a last resort for heavy drinkers who have developed alcohol-related conditions such as cirrhosis.

Best was fitted with an implant designed to release a drug that would make it painful for him to drink alcohol, but the device only lasts about six months.

Nickie Martin who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, last year called for recipient screening to go beyond clinical criteria.

The 26-year-old, of Cinderford, Gloucestershire, was diagnosed with epitheliodhaemangioendotheliomaand received a split liver transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston in September 2003.

Speaking out last year, she said: ?I see George Best and I get annoyed because he has abused what a family has gone through to give him a liver from their dead relative, and he has wasted it.

?I think a lot about the person who donated my liver because I realise they had to die to give it to me and how hard it was for their family to make a decision.?

While all transplant patients are at risk of infections due to the immunosuppresant drugs they take to stop their body from rejecting their organ, alcoholics are at a higher risk because drinking suppresses their immune system even further. 

Do boozers deserve a second chance of life? Read the arguments for treatment:

and against:

* For more information about organ donation call the NHS Organ Donor Register on 0845 60 60 400 or visit www.uktransplant.org.uk