Pro-Bono: When Yachting Becomes Life-Saving

At Troca Global, our pro-bono legal services, partnered with our yachting partner Troca One and its corporate sponsorship program, are not just about yacht hospitality or sustaining a small think tank. It is about using our resources and influence to stand beside people and organizations who cannot otherwise access the support they deserve.

One recent case involved a patient at Tampa General Hospital who was denied both a lifesaving Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) and placement on the heart transplant list. The sole reason given: an “insurmountable psychosocial or financial situation.” In other words, because he was poor and came from a disadvantaged background, he was sent home to die on hospice care.

Tampa General Hospital from Bayshore Boulevard, Courtesy DanTD, CC BY-SA 4.0

Troca Global stepped in. With research and support from our physician and hospitalist colleagues, we prepared a detailed legal and medical case demanding accountability and transparency from Lowell General. The outcome was extraordinary: the patient was not only granted the LVAD, but ultimately returned to the transplant list. Today, he has a new heart and a second chance at life.

Tampa General advised our pro-bono client that he would be sent home to die because of his "insurmountable psychosocial or financial situation." Game over.

The Human Reality

Stories like this remind us that healthcare in America is not always about medical need alone. Across the country, access to organ transplantation is shaped by socioeconomic status.

• Patients from the lowest-income neighborhoods are 20–30% less likely to be waitlisted for a heart transplant than those from wealthier communities (JAMA Network Open).

  
  

• Insurance type often dictates outcomes; patients on Medicaid or without insurance face significant barriers in receiving transplants (OPTN data).

  
  

• Black, Hispanic, and low-income patients are disproportionately denied advanced therapies like LVADs, even when medically eligible (Circulation: Heart Failure).

Behind each statistic is a life, a family, and a future put at risk simply because of financial standing.

Living in a distressed community (i.e. with psychosocial or financial situation) was independently associated with an increased risk of waitlist mortality or deterioration hazard ratio and post-transplant mortality. Source: Heart transplantation in patients from socioeconomically distressed communities, The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Qiudong Chen, MD et al. (2024)

The Corporate Impact

This is where Troca Global, and Troca One's corporate sponsors make the difference. Corporate sponsorships of Troca One and Troca Global allow us to combine medical expertise, legal advocacy, and philanthropic purpose into direct action. Sponsors make possible the research, the advocacy letters, the persistence and ultimately, the outcomes that change and save lives.

Sponsors are do not simply align with a global think tank or enjoy elevated hospitality aboard Troca One; rather, they:

• Restore fairness in areas of society that too often penalize the disadvantaged.

• Fund interventions that turn “no” into “yes” for those who have no other recourse.

• Drive change in areas where systemic inequities might otherwise go unchallenged.

  
  

Why It Matters

Because of Troca Global’s intervention, one patient went from hospice care to a successful heart transplant. That transformation was made possible by the vision and commitment of our corporate partners. Together, we are not only advancing thought leadership but delivering real-world change where it is most urgently needed.

At Troca Global and Troca One, philanthropy and sponsorship are inseparable. One empowers the other. And sometimes, that partnership doesn’t just change lives, it very much saves them.