California Hospital Faces Lawsuit Over Transplant Program
By Daniel Hawn
Published on November 30, 2005
Earlier this month, three individuals brought a lawsuit against a hospital they claim improperly operated a liver transplant program. Patients were subjected to lengthy waiting periods, which resulted in suffering and death, the medical negligence lawsuit states.
Andrea Razetto, her husband, Carlos, and Audrey Degenhardt filed the lawsuit against the University of California, Irvine Medical Center.
According to the lawsuit, the hospital did not inform patients that, since June 2003, the facilty had been without a resident liver transplant surgeon.
The lawsuit further states that patients at UCI had to wait an unduly long time to receive new livers because staff doctors often performed other, more profitable procedures in place of liver transplants. In addition to securing more income than that provided by liver transplants, these other procedures brought the doctors more funding and prestige, the lawsuit states.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said that doctors also rejected livers when they became available.
According to the lawsuit, Andrea Razetto was on UCI's waiting list for six years prior to receiving a liver in 2004 at a hospital in Chicago where she was transferred to.
The husband of another plaintiff, Audrey Degenhardt, died in April 2004 while waiting for a liver at UCI, the suit states.
A report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last week revealed that the hospital did not perform the necessary amount of 12 liver transplants per year to receive government funding.
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