PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The nation’s organ procurement system is feeling the fallout from a recent federal report that found hospitals in Kentucky prepared some patients for donation who later recovered. Philadelphia-based nonprofit Gift of Life is reassuring patients it hasn’t happened here.
Federal investigators found that, over four years in Kentucky hospitals, 73 organ recovery operations had to be stopped because the patients who had been declared dead — and thus candidates for organ donation — showed signs of regaining consciousness.
A follow-up investigation by The New York Times found several more cases, including one in which doctors in Alabama discovered a donor patient’s heart still beating after they began organ removal surgery.
The report involves a specific kind of donation, called “donation after circulatory death,” which refers to patients taken off life support after a catastrophic brain injury.
Gift of Life has been coordinating that type of donation for 30 years, since 14-year-old Michael McVey donated multiple organs after a fatal fall. President Rick Hasz said his mother’s advocacy has helped save thousands of lives.
“Other families that were in ICUs making similar decisions that she did would have that same opportunity,” he said.
Advocates stress that most organ donations proceed appropriately and save tens of thousands of lives a year. However, California saw hundreds of people remove themselves from donor lists after the federal report was released, and a Minnesota-based group even launched a donor refusal card.
Hasz said he hasn’t seen that type of response in Philadelphia, which he attributes to the trust the nonprofit has fostered over 50 years.
“Our community has donated more organs for transplant than anywhere else in the U.S., and that’s a direct reflection, I think, of the trust they place in the care they’re getting in hospitals and the care our front-line staff provide them,” he said.
Hasz also assured that Philly-area hospitals have strict protocols that require an attending physician to declare a patient dead, followed by a five-minute waiting period.
“Our hospitals have really developed best-in-class policies, and I think we have the safeguards in place to make sure those types of cases don’t happen,” he added.
Hasz said the report presents an opportunity to review policies and discuss end-of-life decisions, keeping patient trust in mind.
“Right now in the United States, we have 100,000 patients waiting for transplant; in our area alone, 5,000. All of them depend upon the kindness of a stranger saying yes to donation, so when families are in critical care units and making those decisions, they want to have trust,” he said. “To have all of the information available, I think, can only lead to more trust in the system.”