Kidney transplant programs at hospitals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Texas have been shut down because of problems during medical procedures.

The live-donor kidney program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was temporarily suspended in May, 2011, after it was discovered that a kidney transplant recipient got Hepatitis C from a kidney donor.

The hospital disciplined a surgeon and a nurse involved in the transplant surgeries because of the kidney incident, which was investigated by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the United Network for Organ Sharing, an organization that oversees the nation's transplant centers for the federal government.

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The live-donor kidney transplant program at the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio, was suspended after a kidney removed by surgeons from a living donor on Aug. 10 was ruined before it could be transplanted. Two operating room nurses involved in the procedures have been placed on paid administrative leave.

The incident is being reviewed by the United Network for Organ Sharing.

A problem in a kidney donor surgery lead to the temporary suspension of the transplant program at Methodist Dallas Medical Center. In that instance, a patient was mistakenly given a kidney in June, though that person was not next in line on the waiting list to receive an organ.

The transplant program was allowed to continue in late July after new safeguards to improve patient verification were approved by the United Network for Organ Sharing.

Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey temporarily suspended its kidney transplant program in April because of a higher than average death rate there. It transferred 300 patients waiting for organs to other hospitals.

The deaths of four patients who had undergone kidney transplants within a three-week period prompted a Wichita, Kan., hospital to voluntarily suspend its kidney transplant program at the end of May.

While there was no indication that the incidents were related, Via Christi Regional Medical Center chose to temporarily stop accepting organs for transplants and adding new patients to the list so it could study and review what happened and why.

First Published August 24, 2012, 5:25 a.m.