Surgeon cleared on charges of speeding the death of his patient during organ extraction

The New York Times reported on Friday that Dr Hootan C Roozrokh has been found not guilty in connection with the death of Ruben Navarro. As reported in earlier posts by FRIDA, Roozrokh has been charged with one count of felony adult abuse for allegedly prescribing too much morphine and the sedative Atvian to Mr Navarro so as to hasten his death so he could procure his organs. Here is an extract from the NYT report:

San Francisco, California - A California transplant surgeon was acquitted on Dec. 18 of a charge that he had intentionally harmed a donor to speed extraction of the patient’s kidney and liver. The verdict closed a case that had drawn widespread attention to the medical, and ethical, complexities of organ transplantation.

The surgeon, Dr. Hootan C. Roozrokh, was found not guilty of a single felony charge of abuse of a dependent adult, after two other felony charges — administering harmful substances and unlawful prescription — were dropped last spring.

Prosecutors had argued that Dr. Roozrokh, 35, prescribed excessive amount of drugs during a failed harvesting procedure on a brain-damaged donor, Ruben Navarro, in San Luis Obispo, in February 2006.

The doctor’s lawyer, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, had said that Dr. Roozrokh, a surgeon based in San Francisco who had flown in to retrieve the organs, had been trying to ease the patient’s suffering after other doctors failed to perform their duties.

Very best wishes to Ruben's mother, Rose Navarro. RIP, Ruben.

For earlier reports, see:Prosecutor: Doctoherer tried to hasten patient's death, Organ harvest surgeon’s trial begins in SLO

Ruben Navarro update

San Luis Obispo, California - The Associated Press reports that the trial of transplant surgeon Dr. Hootan Roozrokh in connection with the death of Ruben Navarro has started. As reported in earlier posts by FRIDA, Roozrokh has been charged with one count of felony adult abuse for allegedly prescribing too much morphine and the sedative Atvian to Mr Navarro so as to hasten his death so he could procure his organs:

Dr. Hootan Roozrokh faces one count of felony dependent adult abuse for allegedly prescribing too much medication to Ruben Navarro.

"The only purpose for that medication was to hasten his death, so he could do what he was there to do and harvest his organs," said prosecutor Karen Gray.

Roozrokh, 34, of San Francisco, has pleaded not guilty and faces up to four years in prison if convicted. A judge dismissed two other felony counts in March.

The case against Roozrokh is believed to be the first of its kind brought against a transplant doctor in the United States.

Ruben Navarro, aged 26, died in February 2006 at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo. He had a debilitating neurological disease and was in a coma after a heart attack.

Mr Navarro's kidneys and liver were never harvested because the organs were no longer considered capable of living when he died. After it was determined that his organs weren't going to be gathered, he was taken to the hospital's intensive care unit where he died about seven hours later.

Last year, the hospital settled a lawsuit filed last year by Ruben Navarro's mother, Rose Navarro, for $250,000. Under terms of the settlement, the hospital acknowledged no wrongdoing.

Dr Roozeokh's trial is expected to last three months.

See also:
Prosecutor: Doctor tried to hasten patient's death
Organ harvest surgeon’s trial begins in SLO

(h/t to PatriciaEBauer for this update)

Transplant surgeon will be tried for patient's death

From the Associated Press

A transplant surgeon accused of hastening the death of a man so his organs could be harvested has been ordered to trial on one count of felony dependent adult abuse, but two other felony charges involviing the dying man were dismissed.

The criminal case against Dr. Hootan Roozrokh of San Francisco is the first such action against a transplant doctor in the United States.

After a preliminary hearing in San Luis Obispo County, Superior Court Judge Martin J. Tangeman issued a ruling Wednesday describing an uncoordinated scene surrounding the 2006 death of Ruben Navarro at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, which had never handled a "Donation After Cardiac Death (DCD)" case.

Navarro, 26, had a debilitating neurological disease and was in a coma when he was admitted to the hospital after a heart attack.

Roozrokh is to be arraigned on April 2. It's not known when his trial will begin.

Read the entire article here.

Transplant surgeon charged with hastening patient's death

From the New York Times:

In what is believed to be the first such case in the country, a California transplant surgeon is facing three felony counts relating to charges that he tried to hasten the death of a disabled man so as to harvest his organs sooner.

By most accounts, Ruben Navarro, 25, was close to death, and doctors hoped that he might sustain other lives by donating his kidneys and liver. Dr. Hootan Roozrokh is accused of prescribing excessive drugs before he was dead for the specific purpose of hastening his death. Dr. Roozrokh has pleaded not guilty. According to his lawyer, the charges are the result of overzealous prosecutors. If convicted on all counts, Dr. Roozrokh could face eight years in prison. The case is also concerning donation advocacy groups that organ donors could be frightened away.

Mr. Navarro’s mother has filed a civil suit against Dr. Roozrokh, the donor network and other doctors in the operating room.

“He didn’t deserve to be like that, to go that way,” she said. “He died without dignity and sympathy and without respect.”

Ruben Navarro: important issues that must be discussed

Although coverage of the Ruben Navarro case has quitened down, at least until September 12, which is the day transplant surgeon Hootan Roorokh will be arraigned, Steven Drake from Not Dead Yet reminds us in this post that there are several key issues that must be discussed, issues that to date have been neglected by journalists and bio-ethicists.

Here is an excerpt:

Meanwhile, there are several important issues demanding discussion, but no bioethicist or journalist we can find is discussing them (thanks to Cilla Sluga as a source for more than one of these important questions):

1. Was Ruben Navarro really dying? In the wrongful death complaint brought by Navarro's mother, she claims the hospital told her that the hospital had a limit of five days for coma patients being on a ventilator? Could Ruben Navarro have experienced some level of recovery if he'd been given longer than five days? Is this claim true? How did she come to believe that? What does that mean about her "consent" to having his ventilator removed?

2. Can we trust the coroner's report? Cilla Sluga reports thata betadine solution administered into Navarro's intestines is toxic when taken internally. Navarro lived for hours after the alleged overdoses of ativan and morphine. Did the betadine kill him?

3. Why was no one else in the room charged with a crime? The medical professionals in that room all had a duty to prevent harm from being done to a patient. How did the medical review boards come to a decision that neither the attending physician nor the nurse who administered the injections did nothing wrong? Could they tell us what the heck they did right? What does this tell us about the medical profession's ability to police itself and discipline its members for misconduct?

Also, check out this archived episode of WBAI's "The Largest Minority," in which Steve and Cilla Sluga discuss the Navarro case.

And listen on-line to, or download, Disabled Los Angeles Man Put Down for Organs ?, a show that Steve did last week.