This week the University of Nevada School of Medicine is to seek authorization from the state Board of Regents to conduct a $250,000 study to assess the need and feasibility of opening a heart transplant facility in Las Vegas.
The money stems from a $1.5 million allotment from the 2003 Legislature to look into the possibility of opening a heart transplant center to meet the growing needs of Las Vegas' population.
There are currently no heart transplant surgeons or facilities in Nevada, and local heart and liver transplant patients in Nevada must travel to other states for the surgery and all related medical visits, School of Medicine Vice Dean Michael Harter said. The travel makes recovery harder on the patient and often places an extra burden on family members, who often move with the patient to be closer to the medical facility.
Nevada transplant patients are also typically placed at the bottom of the other states' waiting lists for organs because they are nonresidents, Harter said.
Assemblyman Morse Arberry Jr., R-Las Vegas, said he worked to allocate the $1.5 million as part of a larger capital projects budget bill after speaking with local heart surgeons about the growing needs of Las Vegas.
Most large metropolitan areas have a heart transplant facility, Arberry said, and if the School of Medicine gets one it will increase the school's prestige as well as draw more people to the community.
"Nevada is growing and we need to offer people here the same services or better services than other states," Arberry said.
"If they live here they shouldn't have to uproot to take care of their family member."
Former Nevada Assemblywoman Eileen Brookman, 82, knows the pain of watching a family member go through a heart transplant. Her late son, Michael Lewis Brookman, had to be air-lifted to the Phoenix Heart Institute from Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas for his heart transplant in 1989.
An inherited coronary artery disease had destroyed his heart by age 48, Brookman said. Her son's first heart attack was at age 32.
Brookman said she moved to Phoenix for a year to be with her son after the transplant and then, when he was able to move back to their home in Las Vegas, she went with him on his monthly out-of-state check-ups until his second heart gave out from the same disease five years later.
"I gave up my legislative career to take care of him," Brookman said.
Harter said the School of Medicine supported any program to help Nevadans receive better medical care in state, but that a heart transplant facility here was still a long way off.
"First of all, we need to find out if the feasibility study produces the conclusion that, one, there is a need for a heart transplant center; and two, whether or not it is (financially) feasible to create one," Harter said. "If the answer is yes to both of those, the next step is to begin to do some of the necessary planning."
If the Board of Regents authorizes the feasibility study and the study finds that a heart transplant facility is called for, the School of Medicine would then ask the regents to authorize the use of the remaining $1.25 million to begin planning the facility.
The study will look at the number of Nevadans receiving heart transplants annually, the number of Nevadans currently in need of heart transplants, the requirements of a heart transplant facility as set by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the certifying organization for transplant facilities; and the costs of establishing and operating a heart transplant facility.
The study will also survey private entities to see if there is an interest in investing in a heart transplant facility and will analyze possible joint ventures between the School of Medicine and private surgeons and investors.
Local health practitioners were all in favor of conducting the study.
Larry Matheis, executive director for the Nevada State Medical Association, said the feasibility of a heart transplant center is definitely "something that is worth looking at" with Nevada's increasing population.
"It's hard to say in the abstract if it would be viable," Matheis said. "The only way to know that is by doing the hard numbers and really getting a sense from the community as to whether that is a perceived need right now."
A heart transplant center "obviously would be a tremendous boost to the school and would undoubtedly make it more attractive in being able to recruit faculty and recruit residents," Matheis said.
John Ellerton, a doctor of oncology and chief of staff at the University Medical Center, said a feasibility study would be beneficial at this time but that it should be expanded to look at the feasibility of expanding local transplant services overall.
Clark County hospitals only perform kidney and some pancreatic transplants right now, Ellerton said.
"It might be nice if they looked at the same time going into liver transplant surgery, not just hearts," Ellerton said.
A transplant program often "stimulates other scientific endeavors, supports basic sciences and other clinical sciences and expands health care research and teaching possibilities," Ellerton said.
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