London - Two kidney transplant patients died after they unknowingly accepted organs from a homeless alcoholic infected with a rare parasitic worm, an inquest heard on Tuesday.
Disabled father-of-six Darren Hughes, 42, and grandfather Robert Stuart, 67, were not told about the lifestyle of their donor at a Welsh NHS hospital.
A coroner heard the organs belonged to a 39-year-old alcoholic with cirrhosis and had been rejected by hospitals in England and Scotland before they were accepted by the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff.
The man had died of meningitis from an unknown cause and the mystery behind his death had stopped surgeons in Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham and Edinburgh accepting his kidneys.
It later emerged the meningitis had been caused by the halicephalobus worm - which lives in soil and is found in horses - infecting his kidneys and brain.
Hughes’ father Ian signed the operation consent form on behalf of his son because he suffered from a muscular condition which meant he couldn’t hold a pen. He told the inquest he felt he had “signed his son’s death warrant”. He said the family were under the impression the donor was a young man who had been killed in a car crash. He said: “Darren was not told he would be receiving an infected kidney.
“After he died we were told that the donor lived rough, was alcoholic, had cirrhosis of the liver and that they didn’t know the cause of the meningitis that killed him.”
Describing the final days of his son’s life, he said: “Darren couldn’t feel his legs... and was coming in and out of consciousness. He said, ‘Dad I am frightened, I am scared, I don’t know what is happening. No more hospital Dad, I have had enough’.”
Stuart’s wife Judith said she and her husband had been looking forward to the birth of their second grandchild before his operation. She said: “We weren’t told anything about the donor or his lifestyle. I walked down with him and said goodbye at the theatre doors.”
Both men died shortly after undergoing the operations after being infected by the same parasitic worm which killed the donor. The parasite lays eggs in the liver and kidneys and then travels to the brain.
The inquest heard no post mortem examination had been carried out on the donor before his organs were offered for transplant in November last year.
The families of both men said they had been happy to stay on dialysis for the rest of their lives if a suitable kidney never came forward, and they would not have given consent for the transplant if they had been told about the background of the donor and the unknown circumstances of his death.
A representative for the University of Wales Hospital suggested the surgeon had told them prior to the transplant that the donor had died of a brain infection which was low risk. Hughes replied: “No, that is not true, that is false.”
Post mortem examinations of both men found an infestation of the worm in their brains.
The inquest continues.
How could this happen?
Transplant surgeons have discretion on which organs to use for their patients. Some teams may accept organs rejected by others because they fit the criteria for a specific patient.
For instance, this may be because a patient is elderly and has an urgent need. All organs are examined to make sure they are healthy but it is unlikely such checks would pick up a rare infection. Organs and tissue from people in their 70s and 80s are transplanted successfully. In general, non-smokers have the best organs, as well as light drinkers.
The age of those who have donated organs after their death has changed in the past decade with more aged over 50 and fewer younger donors. One in three signing up to the Organ Donor Register is 65 and over.
Daily Mail