The sister of a patient who died following a failed heart transplant at Newark (N.J.) Beth Israel Medical Center is suing the hospital and the cardiologist claiming negligence.
Patient Darryl Young underwent the heart transplant in 2018 having been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. After suffering brain damage during the procedure, Mr. Young never woke up and died in 2022.
A 2019 ProPublica investigation found that the case was a part of a pattern of failed heart transplants at the hospital. Several bad outcomes in 2018 had pushed the hospital's percentage of patients still alive one year after surgery below the national average, according to the report, and medical staff were under pressure to boost that metric.
According to audio recordings published by ProPublica, the staff pushed to keep Mr. Young alive for a year out of fear of attracting scrutiny from regulators. According to Probublica's audio recordings, Mark Zucker, MD, the hospital's transplant program's director, cautioned his team against offering the option of switching from aggressive care to comfort care, acknowledging these actions were unethical.
Mr. Young's sister, Andrea Young, filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and other medical team members following the ProPublica investigation and a federal regulator's probe that said the hospital was putting patients in "immediate jeopardy," according to a Oct. 2 article in ProPublica.
The lawsuit alleges the hospital's staff were negligent and deviated from standards of practice, saying that Mr. Young suffered brain damage as a result of severely low blood pressure during the transplant surgery, among other allegations.
The lawsuit alleges that Newark Beth Israel staff were "negligent and deviated from accepted standards of practice," leading to Mr. Young's death.
"Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is one of the top heart transplant programs in the nation and we are committed to serving our patients with the highest quality of care. As this case is in active litigation, we are unable to provide further detail," hospital spokesperson Linda Kamateh said in a statement shared with Becker's.
Read more in the ProPublica report here.