Prosecutors have charged Roozrokh with three felony counts, including one charge of “dependent adult abuse” for allegedly administering excessive amounts of a drug cocktail that included morphine and Ativan, both of which are used to comfort dying patients. Roozrokh is also accused of injecting Betadine, a topical antiseptic, into Navarro’s feeding tube.
If convicted, Roozrokh — a Stanford-trained doctor — could face up to eight years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
“Dr. Roozrokh did not intend to hasten Mr. Navarro’s death and, in fact, did not hasten his death,” defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach told CNN before a gag order was imposed in the case.
Navarro’s mother, Rosa Navarro, disagrees. Her son, she says, “died without respect and dignity.”
“I loved that boy,” she told CNN. “He was the world to me and nothing can make me happy, except him.”
Some in the transplant profession say Dr. Roozrokh should not have even been in the operating room while the patient was still alive.
“The standard of practice is for the transplant surgeon to be outside the operating room until death has been declared,” said Thomas Mone, president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organization. “The unfortunate error in this case was the transplant surgeon being in the room and that’s highly, highly unusual.”
To be completely honest, I didn’t think a whole lot about the medications young Mr. Navarro was given – after all, he could have been in horrendous pain, since he was dying of a debilitating nerve disease and had been taken off life support – and I do believe in making dying patients as comfortable as possible, even if making them comfortable hastens their death somewhat. Sometimes, doctors are accused of killing those patients, when all they were really doing was providing sufficient pain relief. To my mind, it is morally and ethically wrong for a doctor to deny a dying patient sufficient pain relief, since rather than prolonging their life by hours, what it is really doing in many cases is prolonging their suffering by hours.
Then, I read the part about Betadine being injected into his feeding tube. That raised my eyebrows, and I started reading the article again from the beginning.
Do comatose patients feel pain? I was always under the impression that they did not. If that’s the case, why was he given Morphine and Ativan at all? It would appear the only reason they were given is that he didn’t die as fast as this doctor wanted him to die, after he was taken off life support. After all, each of those drugs suppress respirations. He was given 100 mg of morphine and 40 mg of Ativan, and his breathing tube was removed. His heart continued to beat. So the transplant doctor gave him 100 mg more of morphine, and 40 mg more of Ativan.
That is a deadly dose of morphine. To give you an idea of how deadly, 140 mg of morphine is the dose used to anesthetize a 1200-lb horse. This patient weighed only 80 lbs, and was given a total of 200 mg.
I still don’t know why anyone would put Betadine in a living person’s feeding tube, though it is used in a deceased’s nasogastric tube after death, and before organ removal. However, this young man wasn’t dead, so pouring Betadine into his stomach would accomplish nothing but to poison him (and iodine poisoning is not pleasant, to say the least). The picture I’m getting is that they were standing there waiting for him to die, but despite everything they had already done, he wasn’t dead. So, this transplant surgeon poisoned him.
I think it’s clear at this point that all of the actions taken were intended to kill him. And what on earth was a transplant surgeon doing in the room with a living donor in the first place? Transplant specialists are not allowed to be in the OR with donor patients prior to death, and this is a good example of why.
Needless to say, the young man’s mother is horrified. Once he was overdosed and poisoned with iodine, though, of course he would die within hours. And die he did, the next morning, but by then his organs were no longer suitable for transplant.
This transplant doctor needs to be in prison, if for no other reason than to send a warning to other doctors, and restore the public’s faith in the transplant program. I’m sure a lot of people who have heard about this case have changed their minds about being organ donors, for fear of being tortured by someone trying to make them die faster so they can get their organs. It’s gruesome, and not something which should ever happen, and certainly it should never happen again.
I admit…this is why I am scared to sign my license as a donor. It is scary to think that while I may be dying, they may do horrible things to me before I am actually dead. I don’t mind being an organ donor…and I have told DH that yes, donate my organs in the event of my death…but I am assuming that will happen when they already pretty much say I am dead and go from there.
It is a horrible thing this Dr did. He deserves prison.
[...] paninigirl wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Prosecutors have charged Roozrokh with three felony counts, including one charge of “dependent adult abuse” for allegedly administering excessive amounts of a drug cocktail that included morphine and Ativan, both of which are used to comfort dying patients. Roozrokh is also accused of injecting Betadine, a topical antiseptic, into Navarro’s feeding tube. If convicted, Roozrokh — a Stanford-trained doctor — could face up to eight years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty. “Dr. Roozrokh did not intend to hasten Mr. Navarro’s death and, in fact, did not hasten his death,” defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach told CNN before a gag order was imposed in the case. Navarro’s mother, Rosa Navarro, disagrees. Her son, she says, “died without respect and dignity.” “I loved that boy,” she told CNN. “He was the world to me and nothing can make me happy, except him.” Some in the transplant profession say Dr. Roozrokh […] [...]
The feeding tube part is kinda fishy to me…. why would he do that? Even if we assume he intended to hasten the death, it’s just too obvious. He knew he would get caught this way. Something is not right about the feeding tube.