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Bowling Green Transplant Clinic Won't Be Impacted by the Sale of Jewish Hospital

NATALIA MERZLYAKOVA, 123RF STOCK PHOTO

A Bowling Green clinic that evaluates potential organ transplant patients will not be impacted by the decision to put Jewish Hospital in Louisville up for sale.

The Bowling Green Jewish Hospital Trager Transplant Center outreach clinic opened in June. Jewish Hospital is the only location for organ transplants in the state, and is being sold by its parent company--KentuckyOne Health. David Lewis is the director of transplant services at Jewish Hospital.

“KentuckyOne has been very open that there’s been, since they came together and incorporated Jewish Hospital over four years ago, that there’s been significant challenges to that integrated vision especially with the changing healthcare market,” Lewis said.   

Lewis said the outreach clinic in Bowling Green won’t be negatively impacted by the sell off. He said Jewish Hospital is planning to expand the program in Warren County by adding a lung transplant clinic in October. The clinic currently does evaluations for kidney, liver and pancreas transplants.

“We do not anticipate the transplant program will shut down and it’s a valuable resource both to the citizens of Louisville, the commonwealth and surrounding states,” Lewis said.

The Bowling Green outreach clinic is currently open the first and third Thursdays of every month. Jewish Hospital is among a small percentage of hospitals in the U.S. approved to perform heart, lung, kidney, liver and pancreas transplants. It’s owned by KentuckyOne Health, which hasn’t decided who the next owner will be.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Jewish Hospital was the only location for organ transplants. It has been corrected to say Jewish Hospital is the second largest organ transplant locations in the state.

Becca Schimmel is a Becca Schimmel is a multimedia journalist with the Ohio Valley ReSource a collaborative of public radio stations in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio. She's based out of the WKU Public Radio newsroom in Bowling Green.
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