It's horrible she was denied when there was a liver already available.

Any full cadaver liver that could have gone to this woman didn’t get thrown into the garbage — it went to someone else who would have died without it.

As for the living donor liver her boyfriend offered, even though he was a match her level of liver failure likely meant that the partial liver her boyfriend could have donated wouldn’t have been successful. Living donors still need a liver for themselves, and we each only have one full liver — so the best they could have done is given her half a liver. Her condition was too poor for this to have a likely positive outcome, which was why this was also denied.

It sucks, but there aren’t enough donor livers for everyone who needs one. The cadaver liver she was denied however would have gone on to save the life of someone else you’re not hearing about in the press — someone else who may have died without it.

If the unfairness of it all upsets you that much, then make sure you’ve signed your organ donor card, and make sure your family members know and understand your desire to be an organ donor. And encourage the people you know to do the same. This is only a problem because there aren’t enough donor livers for everyone — when you have n livers, at best you can save n lives — and thus having a larger number of donor livers allows for more lives to be saved, with fewer qualifications.

From my limited knowledge organ donation criteria are horribly restrictive on a personal scale but unfortunately make sense on the macro scale. Organs are such a scarce resource that as I understand there's no other option.

This girl's death was undoubtedly a tragedy, but as fucked up it's to say if she lived someone else would probably die in a similar agony. Was she treated fairly - I don't know, can we make this system better - I unfortunately also don't know.

We punish substance use and mental health so harshly in this country

It's not punishment, any chronic illness will make someone ineligible for an organ transplant. It's not saying it's that person's fault, it's a situation of "2 people need this organ, which ever you choose the other will die in agony, one is more likely to live twice as long as the other."