Five organs donated by family of 71-year-old stroke victim.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHHospital beds.(photo credit: SAM SOKOL)
Moshe Fleischman, 71, who was pronounced brain dead over the weekend at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem after a stroke, has saved the lives of four people after his family agreed to donate five of his organs for transplant. The operations were all successful and the recipients were in stable condition.Fleischman’s liver was transplanted at Hadassah into a 56-year-old man; his kidneys were placed with recipients at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, and his two lungs were transplanted into one patient.“We know that our father would have wanted that after his death, that he would be able to save the lives of others,” his adult children said.It was the first liver transplant performed at Hadassah since the Health Ministry halted them late last year because of interoffice conflict in the department. Hadassah Medical Organization management had dismissed transplant-unit head Dr. Hadar Merhav, who went to court and successfully regained his position.The renewal of transplants at Hadassah was recommended recently by Rambam Medical Center director-general Prof. Rafael Beyar. Merhav performed the complex operation with Prof. Gideon Zamir and Dr. Ram Elazari over a period of nine hours, which was longer than usual because of the recipient’s advanced disease.In the past, according to HMO director-general Prof. Tamar Peretz, the Ein Kerem hospital had performed an average of 30 transplants a year.
