CA hospital faces transplant suit, again

Officials at University of California Irvine Medical Center are again facing the threat of a malpractice lawsuit resulting from the closure of its liver transplant program. The plaintiff, Elodie Irvine, originally sued UCI in 2004 for negligence and fraud. She had brought the suit after waiting four years for a transplant, then getting one in two months at another facility. The suit led to a federal investigation of the UCI transplant program, and ultimately, decertification of the program by CMS after it was found that more than 30 waiting-list patients had died while the medical center's doctors turned down usable organs. Irvine, which closed the program after CMS yanked the certification, agreed to settle the case for $50,000 one year later. However, when she found out that the medical center had rejected 38 livers and 57 kidneys available to her, she refused to cash the check and worked to get the case reinstated. The hospital still faces another lawsuit brought by 35 other transplant patients.

To learn more about the suit:
- read this piece from the Los Angeles Times

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