Organ Transplant Ends Badly for Four Chicago Residents

Four organ transplant recipients in the Chicago area have been infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after receiving organs from an infected donor. One woman, after having a kidney transplant operation at the University of Chicago Medical Center was told that she had HIV and Hepatitis. Unknown to her, the donor was actually a high-risk gay man and according to CDC guidelines, sexually active gay men are not to be used as donors unless the patient is in an imminent life-threatening situation. Additionally, not only did the hospital not inform the patient of the status of the donor, but they failed to test the patient until another recipient of an organ from the same donor turned up positive for both HIV and hepatitis.

This being the first time since 1986 that HIV was transmitted via organ transplant, all of the area hospitals responsible face serious malpractice litigation. Plus, their reputations are greatly tarnished. Personally I don't know how good I would feel about receiving health care from a so-called professional that infected people with worse illnesses than they were already suffering from. It would be in the hospital's best interest to fire whoever was responsible for the incidents and immediately put into place guidelines and rules that would prevent such a thing from ever happening again. Oh and a public apology wouldn't hurt either.