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.
Well, maybe I shouldn't say it, but the medical slang for a motorcycle is donorcycle.
Have you considered switching to a nice, safe, boring Volvo? :-)
Interesting post, discussion. Thanks to all.
I don’t have any problems with hospitals making money. I do have a problem with them unnecessarily allowing someone to die simply to get their organs.
Read more here to see how big a problem this is:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=organharvesting
It's "our Maker's" - not "our makers". I'm alive today because of a liver transplant I received in '03 - I had a LOT of people praying for me, and a donor who obviously knew the value of a life. Now you can say (or imply, since you consider yourself to be so close to Him that you can ask such an obviously rhetorical question) that I'm alive today in spite of God's will, but one thing I know and always will - it wasn't my time to die. God has blessed my life immensely since my transplant - 2 grandchildren born, new job, great health (REALLY great health), and a much closer walk with "our Maker" (not to mention the appreciation for life everyone who knows me now has). If this horrible thing was done to this woman's son then it needs to be made right, but as far as our Maker's opinion on transplants - in general - perhaps you could tell all us transplant recipients - in general - just why it is you doubt whether or not we should be alive? What about blood transfusions? What about artificial insemination? Where do you draw the line with medical advances that save (or create) life and are you basing it on "our makers" opinion (I assume you must have some special revelation since He doesn't talk about these issues in the bible), or is it really just your opinion? Life is precious - every life - not just your own, and if at the end of my life one or more of my organs can be used to save or better the life of another - even you - then he/she is welcome to it.
I’m at ground zero and know different.
Butchers? You have NO clue what you’re talking about. Hope you never need a liver or lung.
“Have you considered switching to a nice, safe, boring Volvo? :-)”
Nah, that would be, well, safe and boring.
I also think that medical people calling motorcycles “donorcycles” is in rather poor taste and I’d prefer they keep their snarky opinions to themselves. I do wear all the gear, all the time (ATGATT), as they say, including a good helmet, but I’m under no illusions as to their ability to prevent fatal or disabling injuries under many possible circumstances. Some of just feel the need for a little more risk in our lives to feel like we’re actually alive, you know? If I had a wife or kids who depended on me I might feel differently, but, alas, I don’t.
I hope nobody is ever murdered so I can have one or more of their organs.
The difference between what?
It would only be fair if those who have not indicated a willingness to donate their organs were not eligible to receive them, either. But I’m not mean-spirited, so I don’t really mean that, despite the great shortage that exists of organs for transplantation.
Organ transplants can be a very good thing, when done ethically; but no one should ever be killed for their organs.
This doctor order 20-40 times the LD-50 dose of both morphine and Ativan. That boils down to murder.
Never state you’re an organ donor on your drivers license. If you do and there are multiple victoms, you’re the last into the ambulance, and if they’re aren’t enough, you wait.
I thought I covered that - if this really happened, then those responsible should pay the price. The thing that got my hackles up was:
Wonder what our makers opinion of that is?
Who on this thread has indicated a general opposition to organ donation?
Then what do you think our Maker’s opinion is of people being killed for their organs? I don’t think He approves.
I didn’t say that, though I wish I had.
...I don’t know about other transplants, but no money is exchanged for a donated liver - none. Now, in my case, the total cost of my transplant and extended hospital stay was about $2 mil (there were complications) - thank God for insurance! I wonder what our Maker’s opinion is regarding insurance?
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