I don't think this is the kind of "Free Healthcare" the Libs had in mind.
An Ohio hospital placed two workers on administrative leave after admitting they gave the wrong patient a kidney transplant earlier this month.
"We have offered our sincerest apologies to these patients and their families," University Hospitals in Cleveland spokesperson George Stamatis said in a statement. "We recognize they entrusted us with their care. The situation is entirely inconsistent with our commitment to helping patients return to health and live life to the fullest."
Imagine what's going through the mind of both patients: the one who needed a kidney transplant and the one who didn't but got one anyway. They say not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what about a gift kidney you didn't need?
Fortunately, the hospital said the kidney given to the wrong patient is "compatible" (and I'm not going to pretend like I know how kidney transplants work). The surgery for the patient that was supposed to get the kidney "has been delayed," obviously, and that's all the hospital said for now.
Does the hospital have another kidney lying around for the patient that actually needed one? Maybe check Craigslist. I don't know.
How did the hospital manage to get these wires crossed? This reminds me of that scene in "Young Frankenstein" where the good doctor asks his lackey (Igor) what kind of brain he just transplanted into a 7-and-half-foot-long gorilla. Igor replies, completely oblivious, by saying the brain he gave to Dr. Franky was from "Abby... Abby Normal."
"This is not the norm, I'd say 99.99 percent of the time, everything does go well," she told the station. "In the last two decades, this has not occurred in Ohio. This was a very unfortunate and not a great incident to occur but it shouldn't deter people who want to help others through the gift of organ donation."
I don't know what it's like to work in a hospital. But is it too much to ask for a hospital to have a 100% success rate for assigning a kidney to the right person?
I'm not talking about the surgery itself, which I'm sure is unimaginably difficult. I'm talking about going to the right room with the right patient and saying, "Yep, this is the person who needs a kidney transplant."