UIHC joins liver transplant lawsuit
AP/Lang
4/25/19
The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is joining a lawsuit to block a new nationwide liver transplant policy that physicians say will waste viable livers, lead to fewer transplants and likely cause deaths.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the United Network for Organ Sharing hastily adopted the new policy and based it on faulty assumptions, according to the suit filed Monday in Atlanta federal court.
At issue is a change in how patients are prioritized for liver transplants. Where a patient lives affects whether he or she will get a timely liver transplant or die waiting. Some parts of the country have fewer available organs — and higher demand for them — than others.
The change, which was set to go into effect on April 30th, would redraw the map that governs how donated livers are distributed. A judge issued a stay late Wednesday keeping the new procedures from going into effect.
U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Roy Blunt of Missouri have said the new allocation system would disproportionately affect patients in rural areas.
The lawsuit says it fails to account for differences in health care access across different regions and will reduce the number of transplants in states that have among the highest number of high-risk communities. UIHC officials say under the new rules, a patient in areas such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit or St. Louis would have to pass on a liver before it would be offered to a patient in Iowa.
Other plaintiffs other than the UIHC include Emory University Hospital in Georgia, Indiana University Health, Oregon Health & Science University, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee.