Hospital Lacked Donor Organ Consent Form

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Muncy hospital has been cited for failing to have a signed consent form in the record of a deceased patient whose eyes and skin were donated to an organ procurement agency. The deficiency was noted in a May 21 licensure inspection report on UPMC Muncy, a 20 in-patient bed facility which describes itself as "a full service critical access" hospital.
According to the report, which was recently posted by the state Health Department, the unidentified patient died on Sept. 20, 2020 and was brought to the operating room for harvesting of eye, skin and musculoskeletal tissue. "No consent for donation," state surveyors reported after reviewing the patient's file.
As part of its plan of correction the Lycoming County hospital indicated it had been in touch with staff of the Gift of Life, the local organ procurement agency, to ensure that consent forms were included in future patient records.
The lack of a consent form was one of several citations included in the May 21 report. A review of hospital records showed that two members of the hospital board were sitting on the patient safety committee, a violation of a state law, the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act.
According to the plan of correction, one of the board members was removed from the committee.
Other items cited in the state report include open medication containers without dates indicating when they were opened and outdated supplies that had not been discarded.
The report also cites the hospital for failing to have an operating CAT scan service of Jan. 4 and Jan. 5 of this year. Four patients requiring those services had to be shuttled to another facility.
A UPMC spokeswoman said the facility filed a plan of correction that was accepted by the state.
"UPMC Muncy is cooperating with state officials and implemented a corrective action plan to address the issues in the complaint. The plan has been reviewed and accepted by the Department of Health," UPMC spokeswoman Jackie Flanagan wrote in an email response to questions.
She did not respond to questions about the missing organ donor consent form.
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