HHS to reform the organ transplanting system after donors showed `signs of life ” ‘

In the United States, the organ transplant system obtained a major overhaul, health officials announced on Monday.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services promised to reform the country’s organ transplant procedures following a Health Resources and Services Administration survey which found worrying practices, including the purchasing cases of donor organs that were still alive.

“Our results show that hospitals have enabled the organ purchasing process to start when patients showed signs of life, and it’s horrible”, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release. “Organ supply organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held responsible. The entire system must be fixed to ensure that the life of each potential donor is treated with the sacred nature it deserves.”

HRSA officials have ordered that the country’s transplant system, the organ supply and transplantation network, to re-examine a case involving a patient of a body supply organization funded by the federal government in the service of Kentucky and the parties of Ohio and Virginia-Western.

A report in March revealed that HRSA had examined 351 cases in which organ donation was authorized, but was not completed. Among these, 103 had details concerning, including 73 patients with “incompatible neurological signs” to organ donation, HHS officials said.

At least 28 patients may not have died when organ purchase efforts started, which caused serious ethical and legal questions.

“The evidence underlined bad neurological assessments, the lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices and the erroneous classification of death causes, in particular in cases of overdose,” said HHS officials.

Patients in smaller and rural hospitals were the most vulnerable, revealing surveillance and responsibility gaps. Organ supply organizations, also called OPO, must now adopt formal procedures to allow any staff member to stop donation processes if concerns arise.

OPOs must develop clear policies to define the donor eligibility criteria and carry out an “in -depth analysis of the deep causes” of the failure of the suite of existing protocols, including so that surgeons are waiting five minutes after the death of a patient to stop working. Any OPO who does not respect corrective actions will be awarded, HHS officials said.

An audience of the Chamber Committee chaired by the Brett representative Guthrie, R-Kentucky, and representative John Joyce, R-Pennsylvania, will be held on the country’s purchase and transplantation system of the country on Tuesday.

“Shocking information obtained by the Committee highlighted the safety problems of current patients, lack of transparency and poor management occurring in this system,” Guthrie and Joyce said in a joint statement. “This audience is an opportunity to rely on the previous bipartite monitoring work of this committee and to better understand how the entities of the organ purchasing system and transplantation intend to institute reforms. Our members are determined to follow the facts wherever they can direct in order to improve the purchasing and transplanting system in the United States and to restore faith in the system.”

The reforms announced on Monday came one day after a New York Times The report presented several patients who endured attempts “precipitated or premature” to remove their organs, including a 42 -year -old woman who was still alive when a surgeon in a small Alabama hospital cut her chest in 2024.

HRSA officials have also ordered OPO to improve guarantees and surveillance at national level, forcing that data on security stops are requested by families, hospitals or staff to be reported to regulators, according to HHS.