Advertisement

Swedish hospital ships donated liver, kidney to wrong countries

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- An organ donation mix-up at a hospital in Sweden resulted in a liver and a kidney being shipped to the wrong recipients, health officials said.

The liver was supposed to be sent to Copenhagen, Denmark, but ended up in Helsinki, Finland.

Advertisement

The kidney, which should have been sent to Helsinki, ended up in Copenhagen.

The mistake was attributed to an overworked transplant coordinator, a complaint with the Sweden National Board of Health and Welfare said.

"I've been working for 24 hours in a row and despite telling a colleague what I do with packaging and labeling, I managed to get the address labels confused," the transplant coordinator wrote in the complaint.

Swedish news agency TT said Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska University Hospital has since altered its procedures and has developed an organ donation checklist.

Two people are now checking the labels before the organs are sent.

The hospitals in Copenhagen and Helsinki discovered the error, and the organs were sent to the correct destinations.

The mistake delayed the planned transplant operations for several hours, TT reported, but the patients did not suffer any harm due to the mix-up.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines