LA hospital disbands liver transplant program
By Associated Press
Friday, November 4, 2005 - Updated: 07:16 AM EST
LOS ANGELES - A hospital is ending its liver transplant program after officials acknowledged in September that doctors violated national standards by giving an organ to a man who was not among the neediest patients.
Continuing investigations into the 2003 transplant, the challenges of rebuilding the program and competitive pressures led to the decision, St. Vincent Medical Center president and chief executive Gus Valdespino told The Los Angeles Times for a story in Friday’s editions.
Valdespino said the federal government dealt the program a potentially crippling blow by withdrawing its certification, making it ineligible to receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for liver transplants.
“The resources, the energy, the attention that would need to be devoted to restoring the program, we thought it would be detrimental and would take us away from continuing to focus on the core programs here,” he said.
Doctors performed the inappropriate transplant on a Saudi Arabian citizen who was No. 52 on a transplant list, which covers much of Southern California and is based on who is sickest and who has been waiting the longest. Hospital staff then falsified documents to try to cover up the action, Valdespino said.
A St. Vincent patient who was at the top of the list for a liver - but did not receive one - subsequently died, the Times reported.
Now, the 75 patients on St. Vincent’s liver transplant waiting list will be shifted to lists maintained by other area hospitals, officials said.
St. Vincent will continue to transplant kidneys, pancreases and hearts, Valdespino said. The hospital, which has one of the largest transplant programs in California, has not found any problems in other areas, he said.
St. Vincent terminated its contracts with the two surgeons who led the liver transplant program. A lawyer for former program director Dr. Richard R. Lopez Jr. has declined to comment. An attorney for Dr. Hector Ramos, the former assistant director, has said her client did nothing wrong.
The hospital also suspended two employees who allegedly helped cover up the improper transplant.
Investigations are underway by the state Department of Health Services, the federal Medicare agency and the group charged with administering the national organ transplant system. |
