Mrs. Brown: "'Ere. What's going on?"
EMT: "Uh, he's donating his liver, madam.
Mrs. Brown: (screams)
Mrs. Brown: "Is this becasue he took out one of those silly cards?"
EMT: "That's right, madam."
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.
Somebody did.
My boss, a black woman, who is a fine Christian, refuses to give an organ because there have been too many cases of blacks on life support being killed to get them. Whether that’s really true or not, I have no idea, but it IS a prevailing feeling.
If I’m dying, they can have every part they can use.
that’s too bad she feels that way.
certainly there has to be a legal way for people to ensure they don’t become donors unless they are declared dead.
In NY 3 doctors have to concur and the patient has to fulfill a checklist of requirements to ensure they fulfill the diagnosis.
My daughter was not declared right away because she did not fully meet the criteria right away. After 6 days she did.
No one came to us about donation - we were the ones that sought out the foundation.
Our experience was nothing like what the articles posted here portray.
Tell your boss that a little 2 yr. old black girl’s life was saved, and that her mother decided to become an organ donor herself if the occasion ever arises.
Either that or wait for someone to die, right?
Everyone in the operating room and the hospital, they all can make money, big money in fact. But they won’t so much as pay for a cheap funeral for the donor.
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Sounds exactly like the way blood banks operate ,,, rope in the suckers who will give them valuable product for free... they are also limited by the “no selling of organs” rules but they get around it by charging for testing the blood and charging hospitals up to 10X the cost of the tests for the testing... THEN the hospitals charge the patient who receives the blood cost plus another huge markup... You should see the palace Florida Blood Center built for themselves ....
“””If I’m dying, they can have every part they can use.”””
Dying or dead?
The thought of someone ripping my eyes/liver/kidney/heart&lungs out of my body while I am still alive - prevents me from becoming an organ donor. But that’s just me.
OTOH If my time is up - I shall go reluctantly, but I hope with grace.
what if you’re declared brain dead by a handful of doctors?
You fulfill the diagnosis and they are going to turn off the ventilator anyway because death has officially been declared and at that point even the family cannot keep a brain-dead person on a ventilator?
Would you rather your heart stop beating permanently? Or would you rather it continue beating for someone else?
“””Or would you rather it continue beating for someone else?”””
It’s not a very good heart!
Mrs. Brown: "'Ere. What's going on?"
EMT: "Uh, he's donating his liver, madam.
Mrs. Brown: (screams)
Mrs. Brown: "Is this becasue he took out one of those silly cards?"
EMT: "That's right, madam."
I think she has a strong case, but if this is what she means when she says he misrepresented himself as Reuben's doctor, she's not going to get anywhere with that particular charge.
oh! well in that case you’re off the hook! :)
I seem to vaguely remember the news report of a Jewish woman, who was opposed to organ transplatation on religious grounds, suing a dr and hospital because they harvested from her dead husband without her permission. He also had NOT signed a donation card of any type. They had taken his corneas and said it was common practice at that hospital even without permission.
Nomodem: “Now, in my case, the total cost of my transplant and extended hospital stay was about $2 mil (there were complications)”
Neidermeyer: “ “no selling of organs” rules but they get around it by charging for testing the blood and charging hospitals up to 10X the cost of the tests for the testing..”
Someone made $2million dollars...if not the donor - who?
If they wrote an article for every person whose life is changed or dramatically improved by a transplant, you'd change your mind.
If they even just wrote an article about one such transplant per donor, you'd change your mind.
If they wrote an article about every family that donated a loved one's organs and felt they had been part of a wonderful process in which they were treated with compassion and dignity and snatched precious life from the jaws of death, you'd change your mind.
If you had seen the look on the face of my wife and some of her colleagues when they learned that the corneas donated by one of her cancer patients enabled two people to see again, you'd change your mind.
Heck, if articles got written about even 10% of these cases, you'd change your mind. And seriously, is it past the point of your imagination to understand that a few doctors are just plain jerks and go over the line?
I agreed to the harvesting of my daughter’s heart after she had been declared brain dead by three physicians.
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And your action allowed another person to live. God bless you for your decision. There are too many people on this thread who know nothing about organ transplantation. It does save lives.
As the left gets more power, it’s more likely that this will not be prosecuted, or even encourages.
What kind of silly question is that? The original poster was opposing ALL ORGAN TRANSPLANTS not organ theft, and ozzymandus was responding in defense of transplants.
It's as if ozzymandus said "Small businesses are great for the economy" and you said "So you think it's OK to mug people and burglarize hhouses?"
thank you.
We were fortunate in that the doctors we dealt with were outstanding people.
The donation foundation was following strict protocol based on need - not on money or influence.
We were not paid anything. The surgeon received his standard fee for the procedure - afterall - doctors do get paid for their work.
I hope the little girl’s family had insurance - I’m not sure how they paid for their end of it.
My brief experience with this area of medicine did not at all resemble what is regularly posted on this website.
My daughter’s godfather has performed these procedures himself. He is a very devout and ethical man. I have not heard him voice concerns over situations he has seen - although I’m sure there is unfortunate corruption at times.
Someone made $2million dollars...if not the donor - who?
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You know who... anyone in on the medical funding gravy train ,,, whether the support for their business is in the form of government generated rules and regulations that effectively grant a protected franchise or if it is from the facilitation of the normal practice of modern transplant medicine...
I have nothing against organ donation , it saves and improves lives ... but I feel very strongly that the donor should be compensated , without them it all comes to a halt... compensating donors will dramatically increase the availability of tissue and stop the abuses (such as the N.J. cadaver tissue/bone scandal last year , Bill Clinton’s scandal wherein HIV positive prisoners were forced to donate blood) related to the scarcity of tissue...
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