Evans kidney patient sues over ‘racist’ transplant waitlist

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - An Evans man is suing an organ-sharing network and several hospitals over a kidney transplant list he said was race-based and made Black people wait longer.

Cleveland Holt filed a lawsuit April 16 in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia. He’s seeking a jury trial.

The lawsuit states that for more than two decades, the United Network for Organ Sharing and its affiliated transplant hospitals used what is known as the race-based coefficient to artificially increase the observed kidney function for Black kidney disease patients.

The coefficient delayed Black patients’ addition to the kidney transplant waitlist, the lawsuit states.

Developers of the coefficient postulated that Black Americans showed higher levels of creatinine extraction because they have greater muscle mass, “i.e., they relied solely on a defunct, eugenics-style racial stereotype,” the lawsuit states.

In addition to the organ network, defendants include Duke University Health System, Medical University Hospital Authority/Medical Center of the Medical University of South Carolina, the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama and Emory Healthcare.

Holt worked at Kimberly-Clark and was first diagnosed with kidney disease in 1999.

In April 2020, he had to begin dialysis.

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By November 2022, he was no longer able to handle 12-hour workdays plus dialysis, and his poor health forced him into early retirement, the lawsuit states.

He was on the kidney waitlist at each of the hospitals named as defendants, and to make matters worse, he was diagnosed with heart disease in late 2021, which brought problems and pain of its own.

In February 2024, a kidney initially became available, but he wasn’t able to receive it because of antibiotics he was taking due to a catheter infection.

He ultimately sought a private donor, his daughter, and the Pittsburgh VA Hospital “agreed to schedule this transplant where other transplant hospitals expressly refused, citing concerns that Mr. Holt would not live through such a procedure,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that the race-based coefficient tainted Holt’s chances at a kidney.

“Defendants now admit these scores were artificially adjusted in a racist manner from the beginning,” the lawsuit states.

In June 2022, the organ-sharing network admitted the problem and approved a race-neutral calculation but for six months failed to adjust Black patients’ wait times, the lawsuit states.

Hospitals then had a year to notify Black patients of wait time adjustments, so it wasn’t until September 2023 that Holt was notified by MUSC that he was entitled to a four-year adjustment, the lawsuit states. He got mixed messages from Emory, the lawsuit states.

Holt’s heart disease made a kidney transplant even more risky, leading Duke, MUSC and UAB to remove him from active consideration for a kidney.

“Had it not been for Mr. Holt’s own daughter’s bravery and generosity, Mr. Holt would still be waiting for a kidney,” the lawsuit states.

“Defendants’ admitted discrimination against Black Americans by use of the race-based coefficient, at minimum, ruined Mr. Holt’s life through years of delay and resulting debilitating dialysis treatments and heart surgeries, forcing Mr. Holt into early retirement,” the lawsuit states. “There must be serious consequences for hospitals and transplant organizations that engage in such racist discrimination.”

The lawsuit alleges violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and breach of fiduciary duty.

Among other measures, it seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees.

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