A little-known organization charged with ensuring safety and fairness in the nation’s organ transplant system routinely fails to detect or correct problems at derelict hospitals, even when patients are dying at excessive rates, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. During the past year, the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, has been blindsided by life-threatening lapses at some of the centers it oversees.
When it does act, UNOS routinely keeps findings of its investigations secret, leaving patients and their families unaware of the potential risks, according to interviews and confidential records. Still, its penalties usually amount to little more than a wrist-slap.
UNOS regulates 259 transplant centers and 58 regional groups that procure and distribute organs.
UNOS has the power to issue public rebukes and urge the government to close troubled programs, but it has shown itself to be a reluctant enforcer. Often, the nonprofit organization has seemed more intent on protecting hospitals than patients.