All ex-patients from Kaiser kidney program now with new transplant centers

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All ex-patients from Kaiser kidney program now with new transplant centers

By Barbara Feder Ostrov
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:04/23/2007 01:16:48 PM PDT

In a sobering coda to the story of Kaiser Permanente's now-shuttered kidney transplant program in Northern California, state health officials announced today that all of its patients have been formally transferred to other transplant centers and have taken their rightful place on waiting lists for the organs they need.

Yet only 174 of the roughly 2,300 patients who were transferred have received new kidneys since the troubled program was shut down by state regulators last year, said a spokeswoman for the California Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates HMOS.

That's because of an overall lack of donated organs, said Cindy Ehnes, director of the HMO watchdog agency.

At a news conference today, she and other officials also highlighted a $3 million media campaign encouraging African Americans, Latinos and Asians to register for organ donation in the event of their deaths. The campaign, which began April 1, was financed by Kaiser Permanente, which paid a state fine of $2 million and donated $3 million to campaign sponsor Donate Life California to make amends for its handling of the program.

Kaiser's Northern California kidney transplant program was shut down in May 2006 after reports of bureaucratic bungling and delays in care that endangered patients' lives. Patients were transferred to transplant programs at the University of California's San Francisco and Davis campuses during the course of nearly a year.

Several patients and their families have since sued the HMO over the care it provided.

The media campaign highlights the stories of transplant recipients through radio, television, billboard, bus shelter and Internet sites aimed at blacks, Latinos and Asians, who are underrepresented among organ donors. The ads are appearing in the media markets of Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco/San Jose, Stockton, Monterey/Salinas, Los Angeles and San Diego.

About two thirds of the nearly 20,000 Californians on transplant waiting lists are black, Latino or Asian, said David Heneghan, spokesman for the California Transplant DonorNetwork, a coalition of the state's organ procurement organizations.

Since the campaign started, registration to donate organs has doubled compared to the same time period last year, Heneghan said. Nearly 1.3 million Californians have registered to donate their organs through Donate Life California's online registry.

Contact Barbara Feder Ostrov at bfeder@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5064.

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