Thursday, August 23, 2012
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A Toledo hospital has suspended its kidney-transplant program after a kidney removed by surgeons from a living donor was ruined before it could be transplanted.
The Blade newspaper in Toledo reports that the University of Toledo Medical Center announced on Wednesday that the program was suspended after the botched transplant Aug. 10.
The kidney was ruined by “human error,” leading to the suspension of two operating room nurses. The hospital did not identify them.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor and vice president for biosciences and health affairs at the hospital, said doctors tried unsuccessfully for at least two hours or more to “resuscitate” the organ, in an attempt to make it usable.
The patient needing the kidney is in end-stage renal disease and has not yet received a new kidney.