PORTLAND, Ore. — The only remaining doctor in Oregon's only heart transplant program has resigned, leaving the state with no medical facilities that can perform the life-saving procedure.
Oregon Health & Science University is now working to transfer the 20 patients on its waiting list to other transplant centers, including those in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Thursday.
The Portland, Oregon, hospital notified patients this earlier week that it was suspending its heart transplant program for 14 days because one doctor had left and two others had given notice, leaving one doctor to provide follow-up care.
The final doctor to leave did not give a reason for her departure, which was reported Thursday.
OHSU said it won't evaluate new patients for transplants, accept donor hearts or perform any transplant surgeries for two weeks and is scrambling to find heart specialists to add to its program.
“It doesn’t bode well for the program, and it doesn’t bode well for people that don’t have options,” said 47-year-old Jake Akin, who is waiting for a heart transplant. He said some people may not have the means to transfer to an out-of-state hospital.
“I don’t want to travel to Seattle every time I have to have a check up and I really hope they do start the program soon, but I can’t bank on that. I can’t put my life on the line for that hoping that maybe in two weeks or four weeks or six months or a year, I don’t know, when they’re going to get it up and running,” Akin said.
Heart recipient and OHSU patient Tracy Hoyle says she is upset the program is now on hold.
“I woke up at three o’clock this morning thinking about this. Should I call them? Are they gonna be so inundated with calls that they're not gonna be able to help me? (I'm) wondering if I need to find a new center to take care of me,” she said.
Hoyle knows what it’s like waiting for the call that a heart is available, and has a sense how hard this pause is for others waiting for new hearts.
“They have to pack up, move, change their whole life on top of the fact that they're waiting for a transplant to save their life. I just can’t even, I can't fathom what they're having to go through,” she said.
Other medical centers that have been forced to suspend heart transplants have taken months or years to resurrect a program, the newspaper reported.
Renee Edwards, chief medical officer for OHSU Healthcare, acknowledged that the hospital could take longer to resume its program.
Cardiac patients who don't need transplants can still be treated at OHSU, including for such procedures as pacemaker implantation, she has said.
Eighteen heart transplants were done at OHSU in 2016 and 30 more were completed there in 2017, according to federal data.
There are 3,930 people awaiting new hearts on the national transplant list.
A patient's position on the list is based on how well he or she matches with a donor, how sick they are, and how many donors versus patients are in the area.
Kidney and liver transplants are not affected by the suspension.