Sarah Mirando  |  September 28, 2012

Category: Legal News

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NY Organ Donor Network Harvested from Living Patients, Lawsuit Says

By Sarah Pierce

 

New York Organ Donor NetworkThe New York Organ Donor Network has been hit with a whistleblower lawsuit by a former transplant coordinator who claims the nonprofit pressured hospital workers into harvesting organs from patients who were not yet dead. The claims could spark a class action lawsuit by family members of patients who donated to the organization, although one has not been filed yet.

 

U.S. Air Force veteran and nurse practitioner Patrick McMahon filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court. McMahon says he was fired four months after going to work for the organ transplant group because he protested their practice of bullying hospital personnel into prematurely declaring patients brain dead, hiring coaches to train staff on how to persuade next of kin to sign over their relatives’ bodies, and using an aggressive quota system to meet goals.

 

The New York Organ Donor Network lawsuit details four examples of improper organ harvesting, including a 19-year-old man who was admitted to Nassau University Medical Center in 2011 after a car accident. McMahon says the man was still trying to breathe and had brain activity, but was declared brain-dead by doctors after pressure from Organ Donor Network officials. According to the lawsuit, the director of the organization allegedly said during a conference call: “This kid is dead, you got that?”

McMahon, who’s served in combat in Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan, said he’s worked on massive brain injuries, trauma, gunshot wounds and IEDs.

“I have seen worse cases than this and the victims recover,” McMahon said of the car accident victim.

McMahon claims in the lawsuit that every time he objected to declaring a patient brain dead, he was ignored by donor-network employees.

In November 2011, for example, a woman was admitted to Staten Island University Hospital after a drug overdose. The woman was declared brain dead and her organs were about to be harvested when McMahon noticed she was being given “a paralyzing anesthetic” because her body was still jerking. When McMahon objected to declaring her brain dead and sought a second opinion, another network employee allegedly told hospital personnel to ignore him because he was “an untrained troublemaker with a history of raising frivolous issues and questions,” the lawsuit says.

McMahon further charges in the lawsuit that when he told the president and CEO of the Organ Donor Network that “one in five patients declared brain dead show signs of brain activity at the time the Note is issued,” she allegedly responded: “This is how things are done.”

A spokeswoman for the Organ Donor Network insisted “there are no quotas,” and called the claims “ridiculous.” The organization says it plays no role in determining whether patients are brain dead, which is a decision only a doctor can make.

So far no class action lawsuit has been filed against the New York Organ Donor Network, but one could be filed if the charges McMahon raises in the whistleblower lawsuit are found to be true.

 

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Updated September 28th, 2012

 

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One thought on NY Organ Donor Network Harvested from Living Patients, Lawsuit Says

  1. Ginavon says:

    May 2018 Just got new calif driver license and someone at dmv put “donor” on my account. I cannot medically donate and will be contacting an attorney. How many more like me are there out there?

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