Illinois Transplant Patient Sues University of Chicago Medical Center for Medical Malpractice After She is Diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C
In Chicago, a 33-year-old transplant patient is suing University of Chicago Medical Center and one of its surgeons for medical malpractice. The woman, identified in her Illinois personal injury lawsuit as Jane Doe, tested positive for Hepatitis C and HIV after she received an infected kidney while undergoing an organ transplant at the hospital.
The plaintiff is one of four patients who underwent transplant surgeries at Chicago-area hospitals in January 2007 and received infected organs from the same male donor. All four patients received Hepatitis C and HIV diagnoses following their transplants. One of the four patients has died.
According to “Jane Doe’s” medical malpractice lawsuit, members of the Chicago hospital’s transplant team, including Dr. J. Richard Thistlewaite, were notified by the Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network that her donor, who died in a car crash, was gay. The team, however, failed to notify the woman, who was suffering from a non-life threatening condition, that her donor was a homosexual, which made the man a “high risk” organ donor.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines say that a recipient must be notified if a donor is gay prior to the transplant surgery. The CDC also recommends that all organ recipients with high-risk donors undergo HIV testing no more than three months after surgery.
The plaintiff claims that it wasn’t until November 2007, after another organ recipient tested positive for HIV, that the Chicago hospital asked her to take the test. She tested positive for HIV and hepatitis C.
Her lawsuit accuses the University of Chicago Medical Center and Dr. Thistlewaite of medical negligence for its failure to notify her that her donor engaged in high-risk behavior when he was alive and for failing to make her undergo an HIV test sooner. Jane Doe is on dialysis because her body rejected the infected kidney and she is also undergoing treatment for HIV.
Her Illinois personal injury attorney says that prior to her transplant surgery, she rejected a kidney from a heavy drinker who was sexually involved with prostitutes and kidney from another donor who had a criminal record. He says that Jane Doe would have rejected her donor’s kidney if she had known he was gay.
Lawsuit: Patient got HIV-infected transplant, Chicago Breaking News, November 17, 2008
Woman Sues After Organ Transplant Led To HIV, CBS2Chicago.com, November 17, 2008
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