First book I thought of when I read the above article.
Posted on 07/05/2007 11:34:16 AM PDT by Bronco_Buster_FweetHyagh
The mother of a San Luis Obispo man who died after an attempted organ donation at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center last year claims she never gave hospital officials consent to take her son off life-support and was misinformed when agreeing to the organ harvest, according to a wrongful death lawsuit.
Rosa Navarro also alleges in her June 29 civil lawsuit that a transplant surgeon misrepresented himself as her son’s doctor, an allegation the surgeon’s attorney strongly denies. She also said she agreed to the organ donation only because she believed her son had no chance of survival.
Defendants in the lawsuit — the San Luis Obispo hospital; its parent company, Dallas-based Tenet Corp.; the California Transplant Donor Network; transplant physicians Hootan Roozrokh and Arturo Martinez; and their employer, The Permanente Medical Group Inc.—are accused of assault, battery, fraud, civil conspiracy, negligence, medical malpractice and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Sierra Vista hospital on Tuesday denied any wrongdoing in the Feb. 4, 2006, death of 25-year-old Ruben Navarro.
Rosa Navarro, 54, is asking for unlimited compensation in the death of her son.
Ruben Navarro, who was dying of a rare metabolic disorder, had been on life support for four days and was expected to die. His mother agreed to donate his organs, and the California Transplant Donor Network dispatched its transplant team to Sierra Vista.
Rosa Navarro said during an interview from her Oxnard home Tuesday that when she arrived at the hospital she asked about her son’s condition. She said a hospital nurse told her to speak with the doctor.
“He came over and approached me and said I’m in charge of Ruben,” Navarro said of Roozrokh, who was part of the surgical team from San Francisco dispatched by Oakland-based Organ Transplant Donor Network.
“I asked him, ‘Doctor could you do anything for my boy?’ and he said, ‘Oh, no. Oh no… There’s nothing I can do for a patient like him.’ ”
Navarro said through sobs that Roozrokh asked her if she planned to watch him disconnect her son from life-support.
“He didn’t even ask me, ‘What do you want me to do Ms. Navarro? Do you want me to keep him on the machine or whatever?’ ” Navarro said.
Roozrokh’s attorney, M. Gerry Schwartzbach, told The Tribune on Tuesday that his client never spoke with Rosa Navarro and was not in charge of her son’s medical care.
“He did not have any conversation with her with regard to taking Ruben off the respirator. … Dr. Roozrokh was in the Bay Area,” Schwartzbach said. “I feel very bad for Ms. Navarro because she’s going through a great deal, but unfortunately someone misled her because she never met (Roozrokh) and she never spoke to him. That is absolutely clear.”
Schwartzbach said a local physician made the decision to remove Ruben Navarro from life support.
Ruben Navarro was brought into the operating room at 11 p.m. Feb. 3, 2006, and his breathing tube was removed. But he did not die within 30 minutes—the window during which organs could be harvested. He died nine hours later, according to the lawsuit.
An operating-room nurse reported that standard medical procedures weren’t followed when Navarro was taken off life support.
The lawsuit alleges Roozrokh ordered Ruben Navarro be given lethal doses of morphine and Ativan, an accusation also reported as a finding in a federal investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The report showed an intensive care nurse gave Ruben Navarro 220 milligrams of morphine and 80 milligrams of Ativan.
Sierra Vista spokesman Ron Yukelson did not respond to specific allegations against the hospital.
He did say a surgeon contracted with the donor network assumed responsibility for Navarro in violation of hospital policy, which requires a doctor to be credentialed by the hospital to treat a living patient.
District attorney’s investigators have been reviewing the case since March, but have made no decision about filing criminal charges.
“It’s a very unique case. No one’s prosecuted a case like this anywhere,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Hilford said Tuesday. “The case is very complex and deals with issues that require a great deal of research and study.”
State Medical Board spokeswoman Candis Cohen said the agency is investigating Roozrokh.
Martinez, the other doctor on the transplant team, could not be reached for comment.
Why was larry hagman every granted a new liver? THat drunken idiot never deserved one.
What about people with HepC? Is it ethical to give them a new liver?
In my opinion, since organs are typically harvested only from the young and healthy, then the recipients of organs should only be the young and potentially healthy.
“I suspect this poster is a fiction writer who watches a lot of bad medical shows on TV, and his “friends” are imaginary.”
I suspect you are right.
You have good instincts. They are the central granting facility for it:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563271/posts
Healthy People 2010
Pay attention to posts 21 and 23. UMDNJ is Robert Wood Johnson.
“Why was larry hagman every granted a new liver? THat drunken idiot never deserved one.”
well...I guess that goes along with the whole Micky Mantle affair as well.
Did he wait for the liver like everyone else?
Was there evidence of bribery or influence?
“What about people with HepC? Is it ethical to give them a new liver?”
That would be my cousin.
“In my opinion, since organs are typically harvested only from the young and healthy, then the recipients of organs should only be the young and potentially healthy.”
An interesting opinion that I’m not sure I share.
Right now it is supposed to be based on who is the sickest.
You are suggesting there should be a point system of some sort?
The younger and healthier you are - the more points.
Clean living -no screw ups - more points.
Older and sicker - subtract points?
Drinker/drugger/promiscuous? - subtract points?
So - we will be making the donor matchers into morality watchers as well?
Do you really think that will fly?
Name calling is your answer. How very typical.
I have not called you any names.
I have, however, said “adios” to you, in case you missed that.
Please be so kind as to not post to me anymore.
Thank you.
You call posters you disagree with Nazis, and post internet lies. You are unworthy of further response. You lose.
” They are not going to give an organ to a person who will probably reject it, even if they are younger or have been waiting longer.”
OK..makes sense, if they can figure the person will reject it, it doesn’t make sense to waste it.
What do you think of the concerns about people with HepC,alcholics...etc. Should they be denied organs because of their lifestyle choices? Does that figure into the process now?
And if it does - how did Larry Hagman and Micky Mantle get livers?
“You call posters you disagree with Nazis...”
Liar. I called a pseudo-medical procedure Mengelian. But you knew that. Even as you continue to lie about me.
LOL, if you and ozzy want to keep playing games about who I am and such, do it offline or expect to be called on your rude behavior.
It’s got nothing to do with morality. It’s got everything to do with maximizing potential productive years per organ. You wouldn’t give a perfect 16 year old heart to a mentally impared 90 year old with an incurable infectious disease.
My wife is the person I would need to ask. But if they were on the list and there was not a better recipient I am sure they would be a candidate. Why waste the organ just because the recipient does not live to the same moral grounds as others.
“You wouldn’t give a perfect 16 year old heart to a mentally impared 90 year old with an incurable infectious disease.”
heck no...but I doubt Larry Hagman was 90, and I’m assuming his condition was cured by the transplant.
Did he have an infectious disease?
So what I’m wondering is...where do you draw the line.
And if they cannot find a match for a liver - if they cannot find a young healthy recipient - is it all right in your book for someone with HepC to get it?
“But if they were on the list and there was not a better recipient I am sure they would be a candidate”
Yes..that is what I was wondering.
People assume fame and money got them the organ - but maybe the organ didn’t have another match.
“Why waste the organ just because the recipient does not live to the same moral grounds as others.”
My thinking too.
If we start attaching moral clauses - whose morality are we upholding and is it practical to work that into the system?
ROFL
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