Picky, Picky

I think they need to learn to work with what they've got.

LOS ANGELES, CA, United States (UPI) -- The University of California-Irvine Medical Center reportedly has rejected dozens of livers that were accepted for transplantation at other hospitals.

The Los Angeles Times said more than 30 people awaiting transplants died at the UCI hospital in Orange, Calif., during the past two years, as the medical center refused to accept scores of organs that might have saved them.

The newspaper, under the Freedom of Information Act, obtained a federal report indicating the medical center has performed only five liver transplants this year, well below the minimum number required for continued federal funding.

The report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the hospital received 122 liver offers between August 2004 and July 2005, but only 12 were transplanted, including two that went to the same patient because the first one failed.

Even when patients did receive liver transplants, they did not fare as well as they should have, the Times said. Federal investigators said only 68.6 percent of patients receiving liver transplants at UCI from January 2002 to June 2004 survived at least a year -- well below the 77 percent survival rate required for federal certification.