Three Sue Calif. Hospital Over Transplants

[willy]

Here is a teaser from the article......  It turns out that 30 people died wating for liver transplants while the hospital turned down livers and did not even have a doctor on staff to perform the operation anyway.  I posted this in the library so that people could find it in an appropriate area.  Chilling.  -Willy

http://www.hcvanonymous.com/SMF/index.php/topic,2894.0.html

Updated: 10:31 PM EST
Three Sue Calif. Hospital Over Transplants
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, AP


LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three people sued a hospital on Monday, just days after the federal government found that more than 30 people died there over the past two years while waiting for liver transplants.

The lawsuit alleges that hospital officials didn't tell patients that the University of California, Irvine Medical Center hadn't had a resident liver transplant surgeon since June 2003.

The suit also alleges that UCI staff doctors conspired to perform surgeries that were more lucrative and cutting-edge while neglecting transplant patients, even when organs became available.

The other procedures attracted "more prestige, more patients, more profit and more research funding" than transplants, according to the lawsuit.

"They rejected and turned away hundreds of offers" of livers, said Lawrence Eisenberg, an attorney representing the three plaintiffs. "UCI actually rejected donated livers and the patients languished on their list and died."

Tom Vasich, UCI spokesman, said university officials hadn't seen the lawsuit and would not comment Monday night on it. UCI has suspended the liver transplant program.

In the report made public last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that the hospital performed far fewer than the 12 transplants a year required for federal reimbursement, with as few as five transplants so far this year. The hospital's two surgeons were based in San Diego, some 90 miles away.

The report also said UCI's program had a one-year survival rate of 68 percent to 70 percent between July 2001 and June 2004 - below the federal requirement of 77 percent.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Orange County Court alleges negligence, fraud and conspiracy. The plaintiffs are Andrea Razetto, her husband, Carlos, and Audrey Degenhardt.

Andrea Razetto waited six years on the waiting list at UCI before transferring to a Chicago hospital where she received a liver transplant in 2004, Eisenberg said.

Degenhardt's husband, Geoffrey, died April 3, 2004, at age 51 without receiving a liver.

UCI Medical Center has been rocked by two other major scandals in recent years.

In the mid-1990s, fertility doctors stole patients' eggs and implanted them in infertile women who in some instances gave birth. The university paid nearly $20 million to settle legal claims.

In 1999, the facility fired the director of its donated cadaver program amid suspicion that he had improperly sold spines to an Arizona research program.

11/14/05 22:30 EST

[Helen]

That is SO sad, and scary, just go's to show how you really do have to be your own advocate.  

Thanks Willy

[willy]

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/flaws-found-in-organ-transplant-program/n20061022131209990002

Updated:2006-10-22 14:18:10
Flaws Found in Organ Transplant Program
AP
LOS ANGELES (Oct. 22) - The organization that oversees the nation's organ transplants frequently fails to find or fix problems at hospitals under its supervision, according to a newspaper investigation published Sunday.

The United Network for Organ Sharing has even failed to act when patients were dying at abnormal rates, and often has kept its findings secret when it does investigate problems, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The federal government contracts with the nonprofit UNOS to oversee the entire transplant process, from the harvesting to the placement of organs. The organization can censure hospitals and recommend their closure.

But UNOS has never recommended closing an active transplant program, and it has been reluctant to take action of any kind against troubled hospitals, the Times concluded after reviewing documents and interviewing current and former board members.

"It seems like UNOS is often a day late and a dollar short," said Dr. Mark Fox, former chairman of UNOS's ethics committee. "Most people are kind of shaking their heads and saying, 'Who's minding the store?"'

The agency's executive director, Walter Graham, acknowledged that the "sense of outrage has grown in the transplant community" and said changes were being made.

UNOS sometimes took years to follow up on reports of excessive deaths, according to the newspaper's investigation.

At Sunrise Medical Center in Las Vegas, UNOS was aware in 2002 that patients were dying at unacceptably high rates but did not investigate for four years.

Problems with two California transplant centers escaped the organization's notice despite warning signs, including statistics available on its own Web site.

One of those was a new kidney program in San Francisco run by Kaiser Permanente in which twice as many patients died waiting for transplants as received them. Those statistics were available in 2005, but UNOS did not begin an investigation until news stories exposed the problems in May, the same month that Kaiser closed the program.

In the other case, the University of California-Irvine shut down its liver program last November following federal reports that more than 30 patients died on its waiting list in 2004 and 2005, even as the hospital turned down organs that might have saved some of them because the university had no full-time liver transplant surgeon.

In response to the criticism, the UNOS board recently voted for reforms, such as publicizing the names of transplant centers on probation. But officials from the organization said resolving matters peacefully works better than issuing demerits.

Since 2000, UNOS has considered its most serious public sanction - revoking a transplant center's "good standing" - 15 times, but has followed through only once.

[linda]

all those lives lost...waiting for a liver....being given hope....and for what?!?  how can this happen?!?  what can WE do to prevent this from happening?!?  any suggestions hank and robin?  ~~linda~~

[Angel]

I had heard about UCI but not the other programs !!!!!  I really need to rethink going to Southern Calif....... maybe I need to move out of Calif... I know for sure that I will really do my homework on the programs here in the North. How can the people responsible for the lives lost sleep at night !!!!!first thing that came to mind was the "almighty dollar".... I think my blood pressure just went up..... Willy, chilling is the perfect word. I had to reread the post.....thanks for the info...Angel

[willy]

Angel.....I'm glad that you appreciated the post.  It's appalling isn't it?

It's odd that a few days ago i was thinking (uh ohhhh....) about how some of the doctors don't agree with one another about "the rules" or "the truth" about HCV or treating it.  I thought...... would not statistics show who was doing a better job?  I mean...... if we're talking baseball you've got all the stats on the players, teams and leagues; RBI's you betcha!

However where life is concerned..... and the abilities of our doctors......we are absolutley unable to compare, contrast, or rank em.  I mean..... you might be able to do that with all the baseball or basketball players.... but you'll never find a good method of comparing doctors.  Scientific?  Uh uh......

I googled the idea of ranking doctors......and ya know one thing that I got?  Someone else wants to rank them.  (And who might that be you ask?)  Our friends the insurance companies.     Of course......they weren't really so concerned about who was better....... their idea of ranking them consisted of categorizing who charged the most and least.  Their idea was to have a sliding co-pay for doctors; the most frugal ones would get the larger co-pay and the more expensive doctors would get smaller co-pays.  I think you can intuine where this will lead us.....  Doctors at Walmart wearing blue smocks.  The patients may die..... (like the goldfish all do in the pet department) but by God...... it will be cheap!

IF there was a system for ranking doctors, transplant departments, or gastros treating HCV patients this might not have happened.  I hope that someone can learn something from this tragedy. 

I thought about renaming this thread  No Patient Left Behind.  If it didn't suck so much it would be funny at how lame they are.  People making 6 figures failing miserably.

(By the way...... the states that passed the laws ranking physicians by success...... they found that physicians seemed to shy away from treating people that they couln't have success with; they dropped their scores and so they tended to not find doctors.....  Maybe my idea ain't so great after all.   )

willy

[hanklive39]

Do you folks really want to know my opinion regarding these cases???
Do you really want to hear my suggestions???
Okay, but do'nt expect me to be gentle or apolitical because it does come down to the almighty dollar JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN LIFE THESE DAYS!!! REALITY HURTS JUST LIKE THE TRUTH!!!

The article where they mention Dr. Mark Fox -  former head of the UNOS ethics committee also mentioned that "since 2000, UNOS has considered its most serious public sanction - revoking a transplant center's "good standing" - 15 times but has followed through only once."
now UNOS is NOT a governmental agency so it does NOT have the POWER to CLOSE these centers in question... However it does have considerable clout in persuading the Secretary of Health and Human Services that runs Medicare and Medicaid and the NIH, and has the POWER to CLOSE these centers in questions so, the question as to why these centers have continued to operate without the knowledge of HHS is the one that MUST be asked and an appropriate answer DEMANDED BY EVERYONE CONCERNED!!! Ummm how long has this president been in office??? How long have the republicans been in power??? How much "Rubber Stamping has been going on since they've been in power to the level where they make the Democrats look innocent in comparison???
Now I'm not saying that the Democrats are innocent but, this sort of unconscionable practice in human ethics did NOT happen as much or as severe when the Democrats had the reins!!!

Suggestions to stop this from happening completely??? Well, the Movie titled "The Island" is about what can happen if ther are'nt sufficient deterrents placed into law and practice, powerful enough to prevent anything like that from becoming any sort of reality!!! If one has'nt seen the movie yet then, I strongly suggest that you do!

One suggestion is to impose the Automatic Death penalty to anyone that is caught & convicted of commiting such a crime!!! Oh wait, it is'nt considered a crime yet!!! Guess they'll have to make it one!!!

Tie in all data that UNOS has on these centers and have them automatically monitored also by HHS and the Justice Department because, UNOS is nothing more than the watchdog while HHS is like the Judge Jury & Executioner with the Justice Department as a partner in oversight or else give UNOS the POWER to close these centers down until they prove that they've gotten their act together or NOT!!!

Make Darn sure that the data being monitored is relevant to making sure that the practices at UCI, and any of the other centers cannot be duplicated without preventing them from occurring in the first place!!! Centers requesting organs MUST be able to PROVE that they have viable candidates for the requested organs and MUST have a Qualified Transplant surgeon or surgeons that have experience in performing such operations for all of the organ types requested, and these surgeries MUST be followed up and proven that the specifically requested organ is indeed transplanted to whom it was originally designated to be recieved by even if it is found prior to the transplant that the organ is not a match with the original designee... This all can be done rather efficiently and securely via the internet. In other words, once the transplant is performed and it is found that the organ went to another person other than the original candidate, there must be certain set of protocols that must be met to insure that the person that ultimately does recieve the gift of life is a person on the list high enough that does indeed meet the criteria for recieving the organ.
The penalty for falsifying or attempting to falsify records will be Automatic attempted murder if the intended organ recipient does'nt die!! The penalty for somehow being able to override the system will be an automatic Death sentence!!! Of course the system will NOT be perfect because, no system really is!!!

Well, those are some suggestions that come to mind and if I come up with more, I'll post them
In any event, there should be NO MERCY FOR THESE CRIMINALS OF THE WORST KIND!!!

Remember now, this is just my opinion so, I don't expect everyone to like the smell of it!!!

We've got to keep on "FIGHTING FOR FAIRNESS IN LIVER TRANSPLANTATION" because the fight never ends!!!

Down below is a picture of me and my fellow transplant recipients & candidates in Washington D.C. this was back in 1999 in front of the then Health and Human Services Secretary - Donna Shaleila.
We're still fighting until we win!!!
Respectfully,
Hanklive Lives for Today and Tomorrow!!!
 


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[robin]

Willy...I read this in Sunday's paper also and was surprised. The slant I received was that is was primarily kidney patients (not that it matters when your loved one is waiting on a kidney or liver) and that several centers didn't do enough to provide accurate survival records or they fell below the standard of success for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. It would appear with organs at such a short supply and the demand increasing, something like this would not have been "covered up" as long as it was.

Angel...it wasn't everywhere in CA...just certain centers. Whatever TP center you choose should be able to provide you with a 12 month, 5 year and 10 year (I think) survival rates.

Keep your spirits high...robin 

[willy]

I'm on a roll..... I'm not really up on the topic and surely am no expert.  Somewhere I read a title for a book; the title was something like Everything Important that I learned, I learned by Kindergarten.

I'll introduce another story...... this one from my hometown.  This one did not center specifically on Liver transplant....... but it pertained to transplanting.

Apparently, just as people on TX sometimes have trouble getting their meds on time...... for various reason..... whether insurance, doctor orders, UPS, pharmacy problems....etc.  In this clinic there were patients that had their flow of medicine disrupted....the anti rejection meds.  What happens in such cases?  The protocol is to let the system do it's job.  The unfortunate side effect is that the patient's own body begins to attack the new organ since in effect, it is an intruder in the body.  In my hometown there were.....I believe nurses that issued surplus anti-rejection drugs to the patients thus saving the transplanted organ and in effect saving the patients life.  You'd think that this might be appreciated or supported by the hospital.  In effect, they not only saved a life, but they saved the work of many doctors and support staff as well as keeping an organ from being wasted thru neglect or incompetance.

Instead, these people were removed from their jobs and charged with something like illegal administering of drugs, pretending to be a doctor without having the licence.  Sorry, I don't remember the charge.  I do know that they were placed on leave and at least for a while it was a career ending move.  Because the county attorney was busy with a few other heinous crimes....... these people twisted in the wind for what seemed to be a year before they learned that the county would not press criminal charges. 

Instead of being treated as heros these folks were treated as medical pariahs.  They lost their jobs or were reassigned, I believe.  Perhaps I shouldn't write about such things since I don't have 100% of the facts but what I have written is substantially true.  The sad truth is that these medixal folks would have been just fine if they had simply let the transplant patients go without medicine that was available and routinely thrown out. 

Oddly....... it was the peons...the little people that lose their lives....either the patients or those tending them.  Those administrators overseeing the problem....... I wonder what happened to them?

When I read what you write Hank....I think, MURDER?  Wow....strong words...... But when you see such medical incompetance that causes people to die......  you kind of wonder what to call it when ones actions.....actions that are calm, ordered, and done in the course of a business day....what those actions should be considered when they cause or contribute to a death.

I've got to get off to work and may add to this later.  I hate to write more or I'll surely be subtracting from it and apologising later for it.     The part of me that learned right from wrong by kindergarten just doesn't understand how things like this can happen; has the world gone mad? 

Willy

[linda]

    grrrrrr....lost another post. our govt and our leaders are letting us down.  they don't mind give themselves nice pay raises and spending $$$$$$$$$$ on war, but what about the american citizens.  we know how hard it is to get ssdi....even though we paid in to it.....yet, illegal aliens seem to have no problem.  we have homeless and hungry people in THIS country....elderly who have to choose between eating or paying for their meds.  the list is endless.....we can't forget how katrina was handled.  i think i've said enough.....WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!?  (the picture includes bush with his ever infamous smirk on his face)    ~~linda~~

[robin]

Did y'all know the 300 millionth person born in the US was the baby of an illegal immigrant who walked over the border a couple of months ago and now this child is an American citizen. Our 200 millionth baby was of Asian decent...parents immigrated from China (I believe)...but the key difference is immigrated.

I see a good part of the Governmental problem lies in the Senate and Congress who every year has voted themselves a nice raise while denying minimum wage raises for the last 10 years.

Upon reading your story, Willy, I was thinking...I wonder what I would have done had I been in those nurses position. I probably would have fought the system..majorly because that is important in being a patient advocate...fighting for those you are responsible for their care. My own thoughts were...maybe they shouldn't have documented the meds as being given. That is also a strong case to lose your license but it could also have been handled as a medication error...and written as one to protect their license.

I also felt some discomfort at the nurses and doctors being charged with murder for the ICU deaths in Katrina. Those people were going to be left behind and there was no electricity to maintain ventilators and equipement to keep them alive. Would it have been crueler to have given the patients an increase dose of medication so they would not be aware of their impending death or smothering because of lack of ventilation or to leave them alone to die a slow angonizing death? Lots of questions when you are dealing with life or death situations and I believe that our path is already laid out for us and what happens...does so for a reason.

Keep your spirits high...robin           

[Hank's mom]

This story and others like it need to be forwarded to politicians advocating for stem cell research. One of the properties of stem cells is that they can be used to regenerate tissue. Evidence of this has been found in many tissues including the heart. As the only organ that can regenerate at all, the liver seems to be optimal choice. Think of the lives that could be saved without the added risks of rejection, struggles with anti rejection drugs, availability issues and the need to be in the right place with the right doc. The costs alone to individuals, hospitals, and of our insurance rates would drop markedly. It takes beaucoup bucks to maintain a person on a wait list.
The case in California is the point! People can no longer be asked to understand the loss of life is a political issue. As far as those citing religious beliefs, they are only a disease away from having a need that will change their tune quickly. Just think about it, what parent is going to say to their child, sorry son, you have to suffer and die because we're afraid of mad scientist cloners.
We with HCV who have chosen to get well no matter how miserable the treatments can be or have been told they should decide to sign for a liver transplant no matter what a rough road that is to hoe, have not asked that of ourselves or our families.
momxfive

[hanklive39]

My sentiments exactly!!!

I only want to add one more thing that is important, and yet for most of the uninformed who have yet to become organ donors, can be come a very confusing issue...

If you have not registered to become an organ donor and have assumed that none of your tissue or organs will be acceptable due to having HCV or most other illnesses after your death, well - YOU'VE BEEN MISINFORMED!!!

PLEASE take the time to register thru your local organ procurement agancy or if your state provides it, check the box on your driver's license application stating that you wish to be an organ donor!!!

Now it is very important to discuss this sensiitive matter over with your family because your wishes may not be carried out if there is'nt what they call "informed consent" among your family members!

Whichever way you decide in making this important decision, ORGAN DONATION DOES HELP OTHERS IN DESPARATE NEED!!!

I personally believe that if someone is'nt willing to accept blood products based on their religious beliefs then, one should also respect the wishes of someone that does'nt want to donate based on their religious beliefs also!!! I personally do not think that anyone should be denied a transplant if it is simply based on the premise that they're not organ donors themselves!!!

The right thing to do is to make an ttempt to possibly educate the individual first on the benefits of organ donation, in other words to inform the person that may be for all intended purposes - UNINFORMED!!! You'll be surpised how many people in this world - let alone this country, who are uninformed!!! What most people do'nt realize is that the NUMBER ONE REASON so many people do not register to donate is because, THEY ARE NOT ADEQUATELY EDUCATED with respect to Organ/Tissue DONATION!!!

Now if they are informed but, it is against their religious beliefs and they can prove it then one's personal beliefs should be respected, and no further attempts to persuade the individual should be made nor should the individual be denied and organ/tissue transplant as some people may advocate!

Once again this my own personal opinion so, I do'nt expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm okay with that because, to each's own!!!

Anywho, PLEASE PASS THE WORD!!! PLEASE REGISTER TO DONATE!!!

Respectfully,
Hanklive39 Lives for Today and Tomorrow!!! 

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[Angel]

Hank...guess I'm misinformed because what I have read (in the past) that there was no way that I could donate anything because of hcv!! I'm all for donating but thought that I couldn't....most of my family are donars...not an issue here. Can you give me alittle more info on this? I wonder if my organs could be used for folks with hcv...such as tissue,eye's etc.... Nice picture's, thanks for sharing them... have a great day.....Angel

[linda]

hank...like angel, i thought there was no way we could donate.  i'll be waiting for more info from you as well. thank you SO MUCH for sharing this with us!!!  ~~linda~~