Medical Group Accused of Seeking to Collect Organs From Patient Who Was Still Alive
Prosecutors in Kentucky say they are investigating the allegation, which came up during a House hearing on the U.S. organ-supply system
An organ-procurement group in Kentucky pressured its personnel to retrieve organs from a hospital patient who was awake and later left the facility alive, an advocate for overhauling the U.S. organ-transplant system told lawmakers.
The allegation, which came during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the U.S. organ-transplant system, was among several made by witnesses who said procurement groups in various states have pushed workers and surgeons to secure organs from patients who were still alive.
The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office said it is investigating the allegation against Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, which recently merged with an Ohio organ-procurement organization.
Greg Segal, who heads an advocacy group called Organize, told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations subcommittee about the accusation during questioning by Chairman Morgan Griffith (R., Va.).
The allegation was made by a former Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates employee, who said in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that she, a surgeon and other workers in 2021 refused to procure the organs of a man who was “crying” and “shaking his head ‘No’.”
Segal also said an employee of another procurement group had related a similar incident involving a patient who mouthed the words “Help me.” Segal didn’t provide the name of the group or more details.
Robert Cannon, director of the liver-transplant program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the committee he too was involved in such an incident and refused to procure the organs, “which would have been murder.” He also didn’t specify further.
A spokeswoman for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, which represents organ-procurement groups nationally, said they are recovering enough organs that “no one should die on the wait list.” Dorrie Dils, AOPO’s president, said the organization had no knowledge of the allegations but said repeating them without “supporting details” could erode public trust in the organ donation system.
The subcommittee held the hearing to monitor government efforts to improve the U.S. system for supplying donated organs to the tens of thousands of critically ill patients who need transplants.
Segal, who has long sought to hold procurement organizations accountable for mistakes and their failure to provide sufficient numbers of organs, also said he had been told that another organ-procurement group sought to hasten the deaths of potential organ donors by giving them large doses of fentanyl.
About 56 nonprofit “organ-procurement organizations” across the country are chartered by the federal government to collect kidneys, livers and other organs from deceased donors and speed them to recipients at transplant centers.
Each of the organizations is responsible for retrieving donor organs in certain areas. They are paid by the Medicare government health-insurance program and transplant centers receiving the organs.
The groups have been able to supply an increasing number of organs in recent years, but haven’t been able to keep up with heavy demand, particularly for kidneys. As of Sept. 10, more than 104,000 people were on the waiting list for organs.
Seventeen people die each day waiting, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Meantime, lawmakers and prosecutors have been scrutinizing the operations of the transplant system. In 2022, the Senate Finance Committee traced 70 deaths between 2008 and 2015 to mistakes in organ screening.
The Health Resources and Services Administration, which contracts with the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, to operate the system, promised in 2023 to overhaul operations by bringing in other organizations to help run it. UNOS has held the federal government contract since 1986 with no competition for that pact.
In 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced metrics for assessing how well organ-procurement organizations perform the task of collecting organs. The oversight could result in the shutdown of the poorest-performing OPOs, beginning in 2026.
The allegation against Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates was made by former employee Nyckoletta Martin. Martin didn’t testify at Wednesday’s hearing but sent a letter to the subcommittee and confirmed its contents in an interview with the Journal.
Martin’s letter said workers were ordered by a supervisor to find another surgeon who would take out the organs, but declined. She said she later quit her job.
“What is clear to me from my time at KODA is that the OPO does not operate in patients’ interests, and regularly engages in unethical activities for the sole purpose of trying to keep its lucrative government contract,” Martin wrote.
A spokesman for the state’s attorney general said it was reviewing the allegation with law enforcement. “We will continue reviewing the facts and Ms. Martin’s statement to identify an appropriate response,” the spokesman said.
Joseph Walker contributed to this article.
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Appeared in the September 12, 2024, print edition as 'Doctors Allegedly Pressured To Collect Live Patients’ Organs'.
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