A prominent Houston hospital has shut down its liver and kidney transplant program after authorities said one of its doctors secretly manipulated records to deny some patients new livers.
Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center said in a statement that an investigation had uncovered problems with information entered into a database used to match patients waiting for liver transplants and found a “series of irregularities” in donor acceptance criteria.
The hospital said the “misconduct” was limited to liver transplants, but the medical center decided that both liver and kidney transplant programs should be stopped because they are run by the same leadership.
“The improper changes effectively disqualified candidates who were on the waiting list for liver transplants,” the hospital said in a statement Thursday. Houston Chronicle. “Subsequently, these patients did not/could not receive offers for organ donation while inactive.”
of The New York Times The doctor in question was identified as Dr. J. Steve Bynon Jr., a surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He has been contracted to lead Memorial Hermann's abdominal transplant program since 2011. “Baynon has performed more than 800 surgeries during his career and has extensive experience in liver transplants,” he said. biography It is listed on the hospital's website.
The hospital acknowledged that doctors in its liver transplant program had falsified patient records, effectively denying transplants, The New York Times reported. When contacted by The Times, Binon would neither confirm nor deny that he had admitted to falsifying patient records.
UTHealth Houston released a statement to the media, defending Bynon as “an exceptionally talented and compassionate physician and a pioneer in abdominal organ transplantation.”
“Our faculty and staff, including Dr. Bynon, are cooperating with the investigation into Memorial Hermann's liver transplant program and are committed to addressing and resolving any issues identified during this process,” the statement said.
Memorial Hermann Hospital leads a relatively small liver transplant program and has seen an increasing number of patients die while waiting for a liver: Four patients died or became too sick to receive a transplant in 2021, 11 in 2022, 14 in 2023, and five so far in 2024, the hospital said.
The hospital has not said how long it plans to close its liver and kidney transplant programs. At the time of the programs' closure, Memorial Hermann had 38 patients on its liver transplant program's patient list and 346 on its kidney transplant program's patient list, the hospital said.
“Over the past two weeks, we have been working proactively with all stakeholders. [affected] “The patients, families and caregivers of our liver and kidney transplant programs are at the heart of our operations,” the hospital said in a statement to USA Today. “Our number one priority is ensuring continuity of compassionate care for patients who were on the hospital's transplant program list.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it was investigating the allegations. “We are committed to protecting patient safety and ensuring equitable access to organ transplant services for all patients,” it said in a statement. “The Department of Health and Human Services will take all appropriate enforcement and compliance actions to protect the safety and integrity of the organ procurement and transplant system.”
