SteveGrenard
31st July 2007, 11:22 AM
This is likely the first case ever of a doctor being charged for killing a patient in order to harvest his organs. As it turned out he couldn't harvest the patient anyway.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/31/BA5KR9UBO2.DTL
A San Francisco transplant surgeon was charged Monday with prescribing
overdoses of medication to speed up the death of a man at a San Luis Obispo
hospital and harvest his organs.
Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 33, prescribed excessive amounts of morphine and Ativan and injected the topical antiseptic Betadine into Ruben Navarro's stomach in February 2006, prosecutors in San Luis Obispo County said. Navarro, 26, whowas severely disabled mentally and physically, had suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest and had been taken off life support, authorities said.
In order for doctors to harvest organs, a patient must be declared dead
within 30 minutes of being taken off life support. Navarro, however, died
eight hours after being removed from a respirator and his organs were never
recovered.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/31/BA5KR9UBO2.DTL
A San Francisco transplant surgeon was charged Monday with prescribing
overdoses of medication to speed up the death of a man at a San Luis Obispo
hospital and harvest his organs.
Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 33, prescribed excessive amounts of morphine and Ativan and injected the topical antiseptic Betadine into Ruben Navarro's stomach in February 2006, prosecutors in San Luis Obispo County said. Navarro, 26, whowas severely disabled mentally and physically, had suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest and had been taken off life support, authorities said.
In order for doctors to harvest organs, a patient must be declared dead
within 30 minutes of being taken off life support. Navarro, however, died
eight hours after being removed from a respirator and his organs were never
recovered.