Did A Delayed Diagnosis Wrongful Kidney Transplant?

On behalf of Hastings Law Firm P.C. posted in Failure to Diagnose on Tuesday, August 19, 2014.

While the act of donating an organ to another individual is an incredibly wonderful gift, it is a decision that is usually not made lightly. A woman in Texas recently filed a medical malpractice claim because of an alleged delayed diagnosis of cancer in her grandmother. That diagnosis came in Aug. 2012, only six months after she received a kidney transplant.

In Jan. 2012, the grandmother was suffering from headaches and high blood pressure that put her in the hospital. A previous evaluation had already shown that she had a good candidate for a kidney transplant in her own family — her granddaughter. The following month, the two women underwent the transplant of one of the granddaughter’s healthy kidneys into her grandmother.

However, a CAT scan that had been performed in Jan., when the grandmother had been admitted to the hospital, apparently revealed that she might have had cancer. According to the granddaughter, such a diagnosis should have disqualified her from receiving a kidney transplant. Later that year, her grandmother was diagnosed with terminal multiple myeloma cancer, and she died in Jan. 2013.

The granddaughter alleges that the attending doctor didn’t actually review her grandmother’s CAT scan results before they were given the green light to proceed with the transplant. Due to the alleged delayed diagnosis, the granddaughter now claims that she faces physical and mental pain, a lost earning potential and even extensive medical expenses that were incurred through what she believes was an apparently fruitless attempt to give her grandmother a better quality of life. Texas patients who have suffered because of a delayed diagnosis may be entitled to receive compensation for similar complaints — such as pain and suffering — through the successful litigation of a medical malpractice claim.

Source: wacotrib.com, “Granddaughter who donated kidney files malpractice suit”, Tommy Witherspoon, Aug. 9, 2014