Investigations in Münster for organ donation scandal

Prosecutor investigates against transplant chief: investigations in Münster for organ donation scandal

09/29/2013

Now investigates the prosecutor in Munster for manipulation of liver transplants. There is still only a suspicion and it is unclear whether there is an indictment.

Unclear whether it comes to a charge
As has now become known, now investigates the prosecutor in Münster for manipulations in liver transplants. Attorney General Heribert Beck told the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) that there was an initial suspicion that would require the initiation of an investigation. The doctors may have made unnecessary dialysis just to make the patients look as ill as possible. As the person in charge of formalities, the investigation will first be conducted against the head of transplantation medicine in Münster. According to SZ, Beck stated that it will take several months to decide whether to sue him or other doctors.

Charge in Göttingen for deaths
At the beginning of September, the report of the Examination and Supervision Commission of the 24 German Liver Transplant Centers at the German Medical Association showed systematic violations of the guidelines at the University Hospital Münster. The public prosecutor had previously received an anonymous report in this regard. In Regensburg, Leipzig and Munich also investigate the prosecutor's offices. And in Göttingen, the former head of transplant surgery is currently in court. He is accused of attempted manslaughter in eleven cases, as well as bodily injury resulting in death in three other patients. He should have manipulated health data of patients so that they were assigned prematurely to a donor liver. Through these manipulations, they appeared to be sicker than they actually were and thus were on the waiting list of potential recipients moved up. According to prosecutors, it can be assumed that „other patients who were more critically ill than those reported by the accused, did not receive a donor organ, and possibly died as a result.“

Guidelines in Münster not respected
According to the German Medical Association, the independent testing commission of doctors, hospitals and health insurances had checked the medical records of a total of 1,180 patients who had donated livers in 2010 and 2011 after death. According to the PÜK report, three alcoholic patients in Münster, who had not been dry for the required six months, received a donor liver in 2010 and 2011. In addition, in a further eight cases, patients with liver cancer had a donor organ transplanted, even though the guidelines had not been adhered to. Further violations would have resulted from incorrect information on dialysis duty. For example, doctors said they did dialysis, although this was not the case, and some patients had been dialyzed, although there was no medical need for it.

Clinic denies allegations
The patients had been considerably sicker by the specification of dialysis on paper than they really were, because the need for a blood wash meant that the patient was also kidney. This gives such patients an advantage on the waiting list and more quickly assigned a donor organ. A colleague of the clinic in Münster had explained to PÜK during the examination that under certain circumstances she had always indicated dialysis when reporting patients to the waiting list, because that was the only point. The clinic denies the allegations and expresses in a statement: „We emphatically reject the statement that "systematic policy violations" occurred at the University Hospital Münster.“ This „suggests a methodical and well-planned procedure in the knowledge and the intention to deliberately violate relevant regulations.“ The guidelines have been interpreted at the hospital only differently and it was thought to behave in accordance with the rules, it goes on.

Donor numbers plummeted drastically
The donor numbers had plummeted dramatically as a result of the scandals in Germany, also confirmed the Secretary General of the German Society of Urology (DGU), Professor Oliver Hakenberg, on Thursday in Dresden at the DGU Annual Meeting. Thus, the organ donation had collapsed by almost a quarter. Trust in transplantation medicine has been shaken altogether. This is also fatal for kidney patients, explained Hakenberg, because currently about 8,500 patients who regularly need to be laundered wait for a kidney donation. Five percent of them are children. On Thursday, the Ethics Council had also discussed the German distribution system of organs. Some members are now demanding an amendment to the Transplantation Act. (Ad)