Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority has reported its second major surgical blunder in so many days.
After they revealed on Wednesday that a 64-year-old man underwent surgery to have a quarter of his lung removed on a false cancer diagnosis, they yesterday admitted to have completed organ transplants from a deceased patient subsequently discovered to have cancer.
If they’re not imagining cancer, they’re missing it all together.
A spokesperson for the Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH) explained that the family of a patient who passed away on Aug. 25 gave consent for the lungs, heart, liver and kidneys to be transplanted into other patients.
After various standard tests, the organs were deemed to be suitable, with operations beginning to transplant the heart, lungs and liver at Queen Mary Hospital (QMH) the next morning at 9am.
At 2:55pm, however, doctors at PWH noticed a 1.5-centimetre lump on one of the harvested kidneys. After sending them for emergency examination, the team learned at around 3:30pm the specimen had renal cell carcinoma (i.e. cancer).
PWH phoned QMH to warn them not to carry out the transplants, but the lung and heart operations were already underway.
Naturally, the kidney and liver transplants were abandoned.
QMH explained the situation to the no-doubt-pissed-off heart and lung recipients and their families, and promised to closely monitor the situation.
They said the patients are very unlikely to contract cancer from the transplant, but warned that the disease can be asymptomatic and therefore difficult to detect.
Stopping short of actually apologising, the Hospital Authority simply thanked the donor’s family for their generous act.
Photo: Tareq Salahuddin
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