Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Idiot

From The New York Daily News: A nurse who accidentally disposed of a living donor's kidney during a transplant said she didn't realize it was in chilled, protective slush that she removed from an operating room, took down a hall to a dirty utility room and "flushed down a hopper," according to a report released by health officials on Monday.
The nurse said she didn't realize the kidney was put in the sterile, semi-frozen solution because she had been on a break, with a different nurse in her place, when a surgeon made that announcement during the Aug. 10 transplant at the University of Toledo Medical Center, according to a review conducted by the state for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and obtained by The Associated Press through a records request.
Hospital administrative staff members interviewed on Aug. 21 hadn't determined how the nurse took the 13-gallon bag of slush, meant to extend the kidney's viability, past several members of the medical staff without them noticing a problem, the report said.
It said poor oversight and communication and insufficient policies were factors in the kidney's disposal, which prompted the voluntary, temporary suspension of the hospital's living-donor kidney transplant program and led to reviews by health officials and a consulting surgeon hired by the hospital.
This mistake cost 2 people- the donor who lost the kidney (unless they were dead) and the receiver of the kidney who lost a chance of a more normal life.
What a waste.

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