The patient is still alive but organ harvesting from donors continues. A case that shocked the United States after the report of two Republican deputies. Jason T. Smith and David Schweikert, chairs of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives, sent a letter to Carolyn Welsh, president and CEO of NJ Sharing Network, an organization that handles organ donation in New Jersey.
As the Washington Post reported, the organization was accused by lawmakers of carrying out “shocking actions” that potentially violate state and federal laws.
Complaint
The 12-page letter is based on documents and conversations with about ten knowledgeable people and refers to situations that demonstrate the use of questionable practices by the organization: from pressure on patients’ families to get the green light, to the removal of 100 pancreas in one day and the allocation of organs to subjects not on the national waiting list.
The most serious allegations refer, the Washington Post wrote, to an order Welsh gave to staff earlier this year. Staff at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden were reportedly urged to resume organ harvesting from patients who had vital signs. “You informed… staff on site that they should continue sampling,” according to the letter addressed to Welsh and reported by the newspaper.
The patient had previously been declared dead and the organ recovery process had just begun, the letter said. When the patient showed signs of life, staff contacted Welsh.
“The committee is aware not only that…on-site staff continued to pressure hospital staff to proceed with the donation, but that you were also the one who made the decision to proceed with the donation process,” the letter said. “The committee further understands that you, without any clinical experience, decided to proceed from outside the hospital, despite on-site hospital staff expressing concerns about your decision.”
Hospital staff intervened and the organ harvesting was stopped. According to the Committee, documentation relating to the case has been deleted or manipulated.
As Washington highlighted, the lawmakers’ letter will spark debate over a national organ donation system. In 2022, a Senate Finance Committee report linked 70 deaths to errors in organ screening and found gaps and deficiencies in the system. Earlier this year, authorities discovered that at least 28 times an organization operating in Kentucky and parts of West Virginia and Ohio may have begun harvesting operations before the donor’s death was confirmed.
