Forget Tijuana if you need an organ transplant

Dozens of Tijuanans in need of organ transplants have died needlessly because public health officials have failed to maintain organ-donor programs at government hospitals and clinics, the president of the Association of Transplants and Renal Diseases said in a recently published interview.

Dr. Alejandro Vizcarra told the daily newspaper El Sol de Tijuana in an interview published April 1 that hundreds of organs suitable for transplant from patients who died from other diseases have been “thrown into the pit.”

“What I have noted is that clinics for organ transplants — not just kidneys but also livers and other organs — do not exist in these clinics, or, if they do exist, they don’t pay much attention to organ procurement,” Vizcarra was quoted as saying.

He specifically pointed out Tijuana General Hospital, a state-run facility.

Vizcarra told the newspaper he has tried to discuss the situation with state health officials, but the only answer he has received from them is “we’re working on it.”

“If, in Hospital General, a person dies who would be an appropriate donor and no one is working to procure organs, the organs go into the trash and are never used,” Vizcarra said.