I am at dialysis.

I will have to be here for three and a half hours,

so here we go.

Our government has a system to recover and distribute

organs, and it’s failing the more than 100,000 Americans

waiting for organs.

28,000 organs go to waste in our country

every year, instead of going to the patients in need.

My name is Maddi Bertrand and I

am in need of new lungs.

My name is Angelo and I’m in need of a kidney transplant.

I’m Tonya and I need a kidney.

You’ve all seen those ads asking you to register

to be an organ donor.

I’m an organ donor.

I’m an organ donor.

Sign up to be an organ donor today.

While that’s really important,

that alone won’t solve the problem.

My chance of getting an organ depends on the state

that I live in.

In the state of New York, I’m expected

to wait between seven to nine years for a kidney.

So I’m driving to other states and other hospitals

to get on their list.

There are 58 O.P.O.s in the United States —

organ procurement organizations.

We call them O.P.O.s.

And they are tasked with getting the organ

from the donor to the recipient in need.

They self-report their metrics to their boss,

the federal government.

I used to work at an O.P.O.

And we reported false numbers to make

it appear we were doing better than we were.

Imagine there are 10 people who die

and they all have healthy organs that

can save someone’s life.

We might later falsely report that only four or five

of those people had healthy enough organs for donation

and make it look like we were more

successful in our recovery effort than we were.

In fact, we might not even visit all 10 people.

I’m definitely sicker than I was a month ago.

I can feel it in my body.

I can just feel it.

Imagine if the government could easily

identify the good-performing O.P.O.s from the bad

and replace the bad-performing O.P.O.s when necessary.

If O.P.O.s were operating at optimal rates,

the waiting list for livers and lungs

would be eliminated within two years.

I don’t want to see myself in 10 years still on dialysis.

O.P.O.s have a monopoly on the market that they operate in.

The research shows a lack of oversight, inefficiency

and a culture of dishonesty.

North Carolina is going to be my third state.

I may have to go to Utah.

I may have to go to Florida.

I have to take my health into my own hands.

I have to be my own advocate.

I just knew that I would get more out of Instagram

than from the actual health care system.

Unlike Tonya and Angelo, I can’t D.I.Y. the system.

My lungs,

they're feeling,

they're close to respiratory failure.

The system has to work for me.

The Department of Health and Human Services,

which is responsible for this process,

needs to hold O.P.O.s accountable by creating a performance

metrics that does not allow for self-reporting

or self-interpretation.