Med Mal News

Members of the Organ Procurement Transplantation Network/United Net-work for Organ Sharing (OPTN/UNOS) met on March 2 to declare St. Vincent Medical Center of Los Angeles a 'Member Not in Good Standing.' The hospital's representatives have admitted that in 2003, doctors there implanted a donated organ into a patient who should not have been given priority, then attempted to cover up the incident. This marks OPTN/UNOS's first designation of a hospital as a 'Member Not in Good Standing,' the most severe membership sanction it may levy.

The OPTN/UNOS investigation found the following facts: On Sept. 7, 2003, St. Vincent Medical Center was offered the liver of a deceased donor for transplant into a specific candidate there. That candidate was for some reason unavailable to receive the liver at that time. The standard operating procedure under these circumstances is for the receiving institution to tell OPTN that it cannot transplant the organ into the intended candidate, allowing the organ procurement organization to look for a new candidate from a computer-generated list of the compatible candidates near the donor hospital with the most urgent need for the organ. Instead of following this procedure, St. Vincent staff members accepted the organ and transplanted it to a candidate who was not immediately next in line to receive it. St. Vincent then falsified reports to UNOS, telling the organization that the originally intended recipient actually received the organ, and instructing UNOS to take that patient off the waiting list for future donations. That patient later died. OPTN/UNOS found that at least seven St. Vincent employees took part in the violation and/or cover up. St. Vincent's own internal investigation found that employees there were at least partially coerced into participating in the cover-up by fears of retaliation.