Heart Transplant for Anaheim Man Rejected by UCLA

A team of medical experts at UCLA Medical Center has rejected a request to give an Anaheim man a heart transplant, saying that despite an operation, the patient would probably not live past one year.

In a written statement prepared by UCLA staff, Dr. Lynne Warner Stevenson said that the team of 20 heart-transplant specialists has determined that Hector Bojado, 29, was not a suitable candidate for a donor heart.

“Based on medical and psychological evaluation, Mr. Bojado has not been accepted as a candidate for transplantation,” according to the prepared statement.

“He is in fair condition and efforts are being made at this time to identify a combination of oral medication that would allow him to return home,” the statement continued.

From his hospital bed at UCLA on Saturday night, Bojado, who was having trouble breathing, said only that he felt “very sick” and would speak with reporters when he felt better.

Bojado, an indigent, was transferred to UCLA Medical Center on Nov. 21, after administrators at UCI Medical Center in Orange said that they could not perform a heart transplant there unless Bojado put up a $50,000 deposit, an additional $30,000 within three months and $70,000 more in two years. The hospital’s auxiliary had been desperately trying to raise money both for Bojado and for Stephen Regalado, 23, of Mission Viejo, also a heart patient without enough money to pay for a transplant. Regalado died Oct. 30.

Those working on Bojado’s behalf, when the fund raising fell short, turned to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach for help, and Hoag administrators offered to perform the expensive operation.

But Dr. Richard Ott, UCI’s director of cardiac transplantation, said at the time that UCLA was better equipped to deal with Bojado’s rapidly deteriorating condition. The move to UCLA would also allow Bojado, a plastics molder from Anaheim, to apply for Medi-Cal insurance.

Hoag spokeswoman Pam Bolen said Saturday that she did not know if the hospital’s offer is still open. Hospital administrators closer to the case could not be reached for comment.

Tests on Bojado since his admission to UCLA have suggested that Bojado “is at a high risk for poor outcome following heart transplantation,” the UCLA statement says.

“While it is expected that Mr. Bojado would have good outcome during the early post-operative period,” wrote Stevenson, head of the medical team evaluating Bojado, “the predicted outcome beyond the first year is not good.”

In the release, Stevenson defended the results by saying that the evaluation was based on “nationally accepted criteria established by heart transplant programs throughout the United States.”

Each year, more than 200 patients are evaluated for possible heart transplants, the UCLA statement says. The UCLA Medical Center, the statement continued, accepts between 30 and 50 heart transplant candidates a year.