The department issued the letter in response to an unnamed source asking whether organ donation should be considered a “serious health condition” under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
“Organ-donation surgery … commonly requires overnight hospitalization,” Bryan Jarrett, acting administrator of the department’s wage and hour division, wrote in the letter. “[T]hat alone suffices for the surgery and the postsurgery recover to qualify as a serious health condition.”
The law grants eligible employees up to 12 weeks unpaid leave in a 12-month period.
“I am thrilled to hear this,” Bel Kambach, a recent liver transplant recipient, told The Chicago Sun Times. She waited three years for a liver and said one reason people couldn’t donate to her was because they could not afford to take time off work.
