Restarting organ transplants in “final stages”

Operations were halted last year after departures

Denver’s Porter Adventist Hospital, which suspended its organ transplant operations last summer, is in the “final stages” of restarting the program, with a hospital spokesman saying Friday that it’s possible it will open by late summer or early fall.

Porter, which provides kidney, pancreas and liver transplants, suspended operations voluntarily last year, a decision that came after the departure of experienced employees that the Denver hospital had difficulty replacing.

More than 230 patients had to find another hospital for their procedures after the program was suspended.

In a statement, spokesman Joel Malecka said the facility is rebuilding the transplant program and has hired more than 20 new staffers, including surgeons. The hospital worked with the Florida Hospital Transplant Institute to retool the program.

“In addition to a highly specialized medical expertise, we combined a cultural element that further refined the requisite qualification to join our team,” Malecka said in a prepared statement. “While this process has taken longer than we anticipated, we are excited to be fully staffed and are in the final stages of opening our program.”

While Porter has not performed transplants since last year, the hospital still treats post-transplant patients, Malecka said.

Porter suspended its transplant program a few months after the state health department found issues with how the hospital cleaned its surgical equipment.

The hospital now faces a lawsuit from more than 60 patients who allege that the breach in sterilization procedures led to severe infections and at least one death.

Centura Health, which operates Porter, said in a statement last month that the hospital currently meets the state’s guidelines for sterilization. There is no indication that the sterilization issues affected the transplant program, which Porter has called a “separate issue.”