Cleveland hospital admits it transplanted kidney into the WRONG patient as two employees are put on leave
A Cleveland hospital has admitted that a donor kidney was transplanted into the wrong patient earlier this month, and two employees have been suspended.
University Hospitals of Cleveland said the potentially fatal blunder happened on July 2 - but miraculously the patient who received the kidney was also a match for the organ and is expected to recover.
But the other patient's surgery is now delayed due to the error, according to hospital officials.
For a kidney transplant to be safe and successful, the patient and donor must match based on factors including their blood type.
If the blood types do not match, the organ could be rejected and cause serious complications.
Two medics - whose names and roles were not released by officials - have been placed on administrative leave.
'We are dismayed that an error recently occurred resulting in one patient receiving a kidney intended for another,' UH’s Senior Media Relations Strategist said.
'The kidney is compatible and the patient is recovering as expected. Another patient’s transplant surgery has been delayed.'
The hospital conducted 95 kidney transplants so far this year, with 194 kidney transplants in 2020 and 2,761 kidney transplants overall since 1988, according to U.S. Department Health of Human Services Transplantation Network.
University Hospitals of Cleveland said the potentially fatal blunder happened on July 2 - but miraculously the patient who received the kidney was also a match for the organ
The University Hospitals of Cleveland acknowledged the grievous error in a statement released on Monday night.
'We have offered our sincerest apologies to these patients and their families,' the statement read.
'We recognize they entrusted us with their care. The situation is entirely inconsistent with our commitment to helping patients return to health and live life to the fullest.'
The hospital added that it will be 'carefully reviewing this situation to understand what led to the error and to ensure that such an event will never happen again.'
The hospital has notified the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the national transplant system.
But transplant patients from the hospital spoke of their outrage that more care wasn't being taken.
Courtney Hall donated one of her kidneys to husband Ben in February in surgery at the same hospital.
'We were really scared,' she told News 5 Cleveland. 'You don't know how many options there will be.'
'I like the idea that everyone checks in with each other, so the whole idea is that not one person is more important than the other,' she said.
'Which makes the University Hospitals announcement hard to imagine,' added her husband, Ben Hall, 42, a previous kidney transplant patient at University Hospitals.
'It is not an easy thing to go through.'
Courtney Hall gave up one of her kidneys after she learned her husband Ben needed a transplant back in February, with the two having the procedure done at University Hospitals
'The University Hospitals announcement (is) hard to imagine,' said Ben Hall (pictured), a 42-year-old previous kidney transplant patient at University Hospitals
Mark and Courtney had the same surgery done at the hospital that is now under scrutiny for transplanting a kidney into the wrong patient
It is not the first time such a blunder has taken place in the US.
Back in February 2011, Keck Hospital of USC in Los Angeles was forced to suspend all kidney transplants for several months following a similar incident, where a kidney was transplanted into the wrong person, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.
In that case, a flaw in the system used to verify organs caused the mix-up, with Dr. Cynthia Herrington, medical director of the USC Transplant Institute, telling the news outlet that once the wrong organ identification number ended up on a key piece of paperwork in the operating room, there was no stopping surgeons from proceeding with the transplant.
They were only able to resume kidney transplants in April of that year, following an investigation into the error that supposedly lead transplant centers to 'reassess how they do things,' said Dr. John Roberts, chief of transplant surgery at UC San Francisco.
'Most transplant centers use similar procedures,' Dr. Roberts said in April 2011.
90,318 people are in need of a kidney transplant in the U.S., compared to just 11,845 for liver transplants and 3,576 for heart transplants, according to Newsweek.
