内容摘要：“I was so afraid to mention the word pig heart,” Griffith said. He marveled that patient David Bennett responded with a joke about oinking and made clear if the

“I was so afraid to mention the word pig heart,” Griffith said. He marveled that patient David Bennett responded with a joke about oinking and made clear if the

Gaw has rescued more than 2,500 pugs in South Africa over the years after she and her husband sold their house, lived in a trailer home for a while and generally reset their lives to help as many dogs in need as they could.They eventually established their Pug Rescue South Africa in Johannesburg in 2010 because of an overflowing number of dogs in their house. It was “never part of the plan” when they looked ahead to their retirement, said Gaw, who is 63. “Of course, the pugs won,” she added.

The center is currently home to nearly 200 pugs, the latest batch who have hit hard times and need a helping paw. Some of them were abandoned, some sick, and many were given up by owners who couldn’t look after them anymore.Gaw’s pug life started in 2008 when her husband, Malcolm, gave her one as a gift. At a pug club, someone asked if they’d be interested in providing a foster home for “a couple” of pugs. In the first year, the Gaws provided a temporary home to 60 pugs and had 19 in their home at one point — too much fur for one small house.“They are known as the clowns of the dog world, and they can make you laugh,” said Gaw, giving her own breed guide. “Always in your space. They’re just an amazing, lovable breed. And you always have hair on you.”

The rescue center’s staff do their best to keep order. The routine is: 5.15 a.m., the dogs wake up and come out of the cottages where they sleep in groups according to their “age and personality,” said Gaw. Then there’s breakfast, medication for those that need it, bathtime, playtime, grooming time, midday snacks, afternoon rest, more playtime, evening meal, more medication, and all pugs back in their rooms between 6-7 p.m.Fights occasionally break out. The veterinary bill for the center is nearly $40,000 a year, and it’s a constant process of rescue, rehabilitation, and then trying to rehome them, with more pugs arriving all the time.

“The operation doesn’t stop,” said Gaw.

There is a reason why so many pugs need a new home. Their short muzzles, a mark of the breed, give rise to breathing problems and other health issues like eye and ear infections, she said. A pug’s vet costs are not to be sniffed at and Gaw warns prospective owners to do their homework and get a good pet insurance policy: “You’re going to need it.”AP correspondent Donna Warder reports that a racially biased test has kept thousands of Black patients from receiving a much-needed kidney transplant.

A few years ago, the National Kidney Foundation and American Society of Nephrology prodded laboratories to switch to race-free equations in calculating kidney function. Then the U.S. organ transplant network ordered hospitals to use only race-neutral test results in adding new patients to the kidney waiting list.“The immediate question came up: What about the people on the list right now? You can’t just leave them behind,” said Dr. Martha Pavlakis of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and former chair of the network’s kidney committee.

Pavlakis calls what happened next an attempt at restorative justice: The transplant network gave hospitals a year to uncover which Black kidney candidates could have qualified for a new kidney sooner if not for the race-based test — and adjust their waiting time to make up for it. That lookback continues for each newly listed Black patient to see if they, too, should have been referred sooner.Between January 2023 and mid-March, more than 14,300 Black kidney transplant candidates have had their wait times modified, by an average of two years, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the transplant system. So far more than 2,800 of them, including Evans, have received a transplant.