Um … shouldn’t organs from sick people be vetted first?

Reading this story makes me question the common sense and reason of doctors and hospitals. Check this out: a soldier who received a lung implant died as a result of receiving the cancerous lungs of a heavy smoker.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Corporal Matthew Millington, 31, died at his home in 2008, less than a year after receiving a transplant that was supposed to save his life at Papworth Hospital -- the UK's largest specialist cardiothoracic hospital, in Cambridgeshire, east England.

Papworth Hospital released a statement saying using donor lungs from smokers was not "unusual."

The statement added that the hospital had no option but to use lungs from smokers as "the number of lung transplants carried out would have been significantly lower," if they didn't.

You know what? If faced with the prospect of getting an organ implant, I think I’d rather take my chances and wait long enough to make sure I’m not getting someone else’s cancer. Not much of a point in trading one disease for another.

Seriously, what the hell kind of hospital treats their patients to organs from diseased donors? Giving someone the lungs of a smoker is about as logical and sensible as giving someone else the heart of someone who’s suffered several massive heart attacks. It seems just as safe to me.

This sounds like one hospital needs a serious whacking of a disciplinary ruler on their fingers. A poor man died as a result of this stupidity, so now the question is, how many more will it take?