Kidney Donor’s Records Protected from Disclosure

ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) - New York University Medical Center cannot compel another hospital to release the medical records of a kidney donor whose organ was transplanted into a patient who later died of kidney cancer, a New York appellate division ruled.

The medical center sought the records from St. Luke's Hospital in an effort to clear the center of liability in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the deceased patient's relatives. It claimed the donor had waived its physician-patient privilege "merely by offering to donate an organ," the ruling states.

"Although the privilege may be waived by a personal representative when the patient is deceased," the court ruled, "there was no such waiver here."

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