Wrongful Death: Organ Transplant Too Late

"Nothing can bring my husband back to me but these people should be punished for what they did," says Jeannie Finley from Sacramento, California.

Thomas Finley was only 49 years old when he died of liver failure. "My husband was told in 1999 that he needed a liver and he was healthy at the time," says Finley. "He kept going to and from the hospital, and Dr. Lopez told us that there would be a liver for him. But Tom got sicker and the last time he went into hospital, January 2005, he went into a coma."

Tom was in the intensive care unit while a liver was being found. Finally a donor was located. But while he waited, Tom contracted [MRSA] - a bacteria resistant to antibiotics that is commonly found in hospitals. He contracted a fever and the medical team said he was too weak for the liver transplant. He died a few days later.

"I don't know why he had to wait so long to get a liver - he was A positive, a common blood type," says Finley. "I was told that he was on a list and it was by an honor system."

About nine months after Tom died, Finley read an [article] in the Los Angeles Times titled: Deception Behind Liver-Transplant Switch Proved to Be Fatal .

"I am so upset about that story. It was reported that St. Vincent Hospital gave a liver out of turn," says Finley. "Nothing can bring Tom back but these people should be punished, these people are wrong."

It was later discovered that the hospital in question, St Vincent Hospital, tried to cover up its tactics, i.e. using one patient's position on the waiting list to obtain an organ for someone else. Medical leaders at the hospital hired outside investigators to determine any wrong-doing. Subsequently Dr. Lopez (Tom Finley's doctor) resigned and two more administrators are currently under investigation for falsifying records.

"This isn't about money or anger; I just don't want this to happen to anyone else. My husband and I believed in the [MELD system] (Model for End Liver Disease) whereby they take your lab scores and if they equal a certain score, that is how you are placed on the list. Tom thought it was honest and fair. He did everything the doctors told him to. When we were finally down to the point where he was going to get a liver, he got this deadly bacteria instead in the hospital. I wasn't upset at the time of his death with the doctors or administrators of the program. But when this story came out, how they gave livers out of turn, and for money, I got bitter and mad. I prayed a lot, and I tried to let it go, but I don't want them to do it again.

"I want a system that is fair, like [United Network for Organ Sharing]. But nothing will bring Tom back."