Charge against senior physician in the organ donation scandal

Munich senior physician accused of suspected manipulation of organ donation

06/03/2015

In the case of transplantation, donor organs are assigned according to urgency, which is why a senior physician from the Munich hospital on the right bank of the River Isar is said to have dramatized the condition of several patients in order to enable faster transplantation. In 2012, the transplant scandal in Munich flew up and now the public prosecutor's office at the district court in Munich I filed a lawsuit for attempted dangerous bodily injury in three cases, according to the news agency „dpa“.

Manipulations of organ donations and transplants were first identified in 2012 at the University Hospital Göttingen and subsequently also at hospitals in Regensburg, Munich and Leipzig. The organ donation scandal had caused a considerable stir throughout Germany and caused a significant decrease in organ donation. In the cases revealed, the doctors had falsified patient records and made their health on paper look worse than it actually was to allow for early transplantation.

Blood levels manipulated by patients
The 46-year-old senior physician from Munich is accused by the prosecution, he had in 2009 and 2010 manipulated the blood levels of three patients to achieve a faster liver transplant. The former senior physician had indicated that the Klinikum rechts der Isar had checked earlier organ donations. The information of the news agency „dpa“ According to the prosecutors, the doctor has in three cases knowingly sent incorrect blood data to the organization Eurotransplant, which is responsible for the allocation of donor organs. Thus, blood values ​​were to be transmitted twice, which were not from the specified patients themselves, and in the third patient, the blood values ​​were manipulated by the addition of other substances, the reports „dpa“.

Patients received a donor organ faster
On paper, the patient's state of health appeared to be life-threatening as a result of the manipulations, which gave those affected a significantly better place on the waiting list for a donor liver. Thus, two of the patients received the message „dpa“ in January 2010 a donor liver, in the third case, however, another doctor had noticed before the transplantation that incorrect information was the basis for the award of the donor organ. The organ eventually got another patient, who needed this more urgently. This is precisely the main problem in the manipulation of information for a required organ donation. Because less sick people slip on the list by false information up, which is why seriously ill patients sometimes get no organ.

Other seriously ill patients are endangered by the manipulation
According to the prosecution's arguments, the senior physician has accepted with approval that his patients were displaced from their list by his manipulations and were not given a donor organ „dpa“. In this way, the physicians at least theoretically caused an extension of the suffering and an abstract danger to life of other patients. Although it is not to assume a killing intent, but tried dangerous injury is justified in the view of the prosecutor, even if the physician rejects all allegations. Whether the complaint is admitted, the district court Munich I still has to decide. In the event of a conviction, the former senior physician - depending on the seriousness of the offense - would face a sentence of six months to ten years imprisonment. (Fp)