Hospital Employees Placed On Leave After Wrong Patient Receives Kidney

An Ohio hospital performed a kidney transplant on the wrong patient earlier this month, placing two of its employees on administrative leave over the incident.

University Hospitals in Cleveland (UH) admitted to the mistake, which took place on Jul. 2, in a statement Monday. The patient who received the transplant is compatible with the kidney and is expected to recover, according to the statement.

”We are also carefully reviewing this situation to understand what led to the error and to ensure that such an event will never happen again,” UH spokesman George Stamatis said in the statement. “The University Hospitals Transplant Program is comprised of a highly qualified, multidisciplinary team of experts with decades of transplant care delivery and research experience.”

As major surgeries, kidney transplants have a number of potential complications, such as blood clots, infection, and heart attacks, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The hospital placed two employees on leave over the incident, but no explanation was offered for how the mix-up occurred.

“Two of our caregivers are on administrative leave pending the determinations of our investigation,” Stamatis said.

The hospital notified the United Network for Organ Sharing, the organization that manages the national organ transplant system, about the incident.

“This is not the norm, I’d say 99.99 percent of the time, everything does go well,” Heather Mekesa, chief operations officer for organ procurement organization Lifebanc, told WKCY. “In the last two decades this has not occurred in Ohio.”

“We have offered our sincerest apologies to these patients and their families,” Stamatis said. “We recognize they entrusted us with their care.”

A spokesperson for University Hospitals declined to answer any further questions.