The state of the US healthcare system has created a boom in crowdfunded medical campaigns as patients struggle to pay for treatment. In 2017, campaigners raised $930 million through GoFundMe — nearly half of the money raised by the site. Some hospitals have taken notice. Splinter highlighted a recent example in which a woman was denied a heart transplant because of the state of her finances, and suggested that she set up a “fundraising effort.”

The patient in question is Hedda Martin, who has been experiencing congestive heart failure after being treated for breast cancer in 2005. Doctors recommended that she get a Left Ventricular Assist Device to keep her alive while she waited for a heart transplant. Her condition deteriorated in…

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