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HILL CITY, Kan. - A northwest Kansas woman who won her battle to get Kansas to pay for an out-of-state transplant has lost her fight against liver disease.
The Kansas City Star reports 66-year-old Mary Stinemetz of Hill City died Sunday at a Colorado hospital located near her daughter, three years after she learned she needed a new liver.The Jehovah's Witness refused to undergo a transplant at the University of Kansas Hospital because she would need a blood transfusion, which went against her religion.
Last year a Kansas appeals court found the state violated her constitutional right to exercise her religious faith by denying Medicaid coverage for a bloodless transplant in Nebraska.
Her condition got worse by the time she got on a transplant list, and she became ineligible for the procedure.