A 60-year-old cardiac patient
died in a Rome hospital after being given the transplanted heart
of a man who died of brain damage after a heart attack, sources
said Wednesday - although medical officials insisted the heart
was healthy.
The heart was removed at Milan's San Raffaele Hospital and
given to the man at Rome's San Camillo Hospital.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin called the case "serious
and unacceptable" and said there would be an inquiry.
The man's relatives have filed a complaint and prosecutors
have opened a probe.
The head of the national transplant centre, Alessandro Nanni
Costa, said "the heart was deemed normal by a scan, and fit to
be transplanted".
The heart "was in perfect condition, healthy and with all the
parameters to be transplanted," San Camillo heart surgery unit
chief Francesco Musumeci said, saying that media reports that it
was unhealthy were "totally false".
But a Rome court-ordered forensic consultation has
established that the heart was unfit to be transplanted, sources
said Wednesday.
The report has been sent to Rome prosecutors probing the
case.
The had of the Italian donors group AIDO, Flavia Petrin,
said Italian transplant medicine "is now one of the pillars of
the national health system, with excellent results at an
international level".
photo: San Raffaele Hospital in Milan
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