A hospital in New Jersey admitted to making a potentially life-threatening mistake after giving a kidney transplant to the wrong patient. Officials at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden explained that the patient who received the kidney "has the same name and is of similar age" as the intended recipient of the organ. Luckily, the hospital was able to find another kidney and successfully conducted the operation on the correct patient just six days later.
"Mistakes of this magnitude are rare, and despite the unusual circumstances of similar patient identities, additional verification would have prevented this error," Reginald Blaber, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Virtua Health, said in the statement. "This is an unprecedented event in our respected 40-plus-year transplant program. As an organization committed to safety and process, we immediately instituted additional measures and educational reinforcement to help ensure this does not happen again."
Both patients are doing well and are recovering from their surgeries.
There is a massive waiting list for people who need organ transplants, especially kidneys. According to the United Network of Organ Sharing, there are nearly 125,000 people on the waitlist for an organ transplant, with over 100,000 of those people in need of a kidney. Despite the long list, there were only around 21,000 kidney transplant surgeries performed last year, and patients in need of a transplant usually have to wait between four and five years.
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