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Calif. Transplant Patients Seek Hospitals

Posted on: Friday, 11 November 2005, 21:00 CST

By GILLIAN FLACCUS

IRVINE, Calif. - Dozens of people who waited months or even years for new livers at UCI Medical Center will turn to other hospitals after a federal investigation led to an abrupt shutdown of the facility's transplant program.

More than 100 patients at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center could transfer to one of five other liver programs in greater Los Angeles, or go elsewhere.

Many could get desperately needed surgery within weeks or months, said Tom Mone, chief executive of OneLegacy, a nonprofit group that contracts with the federal government to procure organs for patients in Southern California.

The UCI program voluntarily closed down Thursday when federal officials cut funding for Medicare patients after finding that more than 30 people died while awaiting liver transplants in the past two years.

A report by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that UCI was offered 122 livers between August 2004 and July 2005 but transplanted only 12. The hospital has not had a resident liver transplant surgeon since June 2003; its two surgeons were instead based in San Diego, some 90 miles away.

Elodie Irvine, a former UCI patient who filed a lawsuit after waiting four years for a liver and kidney transplant, said Friday she was relieved her friends may finally get help. Irvine's lawsuit - and undisclosed settlement - triggered the federal investigation of the UCI program.

"I know this saved lives," said Irvine, 51. "I feel like something heavy has been lifted off me, and I'll sleep well tonight."

UCI said it rejected many offered organs because they were of poor quality or were not a good match for patients. But many of the same organs were later successfully transplanted into patients at other hospitals.

The medical center planned to put together a committee of experts to evaluate the program, according to its chief executive officer, Dr. Ralph Cygan.

"It's scary. These patients have put their trust in that facility and they've been failed," said Mary Heisick, president of the Orange County chapter of the American Association for Kidney Patients and herself a kidney transplant recipient.

Mone said it is not unusual for doctors to reject organs but it is unusual for a program to reject so many. UCI's acceptance rate was about 4 percent, while other centers had rates between 9 percent and 13 percent, according to OneLegacy.

"If you are, perhaps, wanting to mask the fact that you don't have a surgeon available, it's certainly a handy answer," Mone said.

UCI Medical Center, in the city of Orange, was 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, UCI fired the director of its donated cadaver program amid suspicions that he had improperly sold spines to an Arizona research program.

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Associated Press Writer Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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