The state's only heart transplant program is now temporarily suspended after at least three cardiologists on the transplant team left or announced plans to leave.

Oregon Health & Science University will not evaluate new transplant candidates, accept donor hearts or perform any transplant surgeries for 14 days. Renee Edwards, chief medical officer for OHSU Healthcare, said the transplant team is adequately staffed to follow up with anyone who's recently received a new heart.

People who need pacemakers or comparable procedures can still be treated at OHSU, she said. But anyone on track for a transplant soon would likely be referred to another hospital.

The attrition comes during a period of significant turnover – especially at the executive level – for the Southwest Portland university. The former CEO resigned in April, about a year into his tenure. John Hunter, the executive vice president and CEO of OHSU's Health System, took over his duties. On Aug. 1, Danny Jacobs took over as president of OHSU after a yearlong search.

Edwards said the departures on the heart transplant team were primarily for career and family reasons, and that two of the doctors will stay on until the end of September. When OHSU executives learned of the turnover on Friday, they decided to suspend the program out of concern that heart recipients wouldn't have someone to guide their post-operative care.

Patients typically require months of follow-up visits with their cardiologist after a heart transplant.

During the 14-day pause, Edwards said, administrators will focus on recruiting transplantation and heart specialists to run the program, which has been in operation for 32 years.

Edwards, who acknowledged the program suspension could extend beyond the 14 days, said hospital leaders understand that patients are concerned.

"It was not an easy decision to make as the only heart transplant center in Oregon. We feel a tremendous amount of responsibility," she told The Oregonian/OregonLive Monday. "But because our goal is to do the right thing, this pause is to ensure the care of our patients and look to the recruit of additional providers."

OHSU performed 30 heart transplants in 2017, compared with 18 in 2016, according to federal data. There are 3,930 people awaiting new hearts on the national transplant list.

Kidney and liver transplants are not affected by the suspension.

Heart transplant candidates can either stay with OHSU during the inactivation period or receive a referral to another medical facility out of state.

For those on the transplant list, the news is devastating.

"What it means is potentially I'm not going to make it," said Dianna Howell, 58, of Albany. "This situation could be fatal."

Howell has been on the heart transplant list for 13 months. She was diagnosed with "end-stage heart disease" in 2016 after passing out at work. "It was a transplant or hospice," she said.

She and her husband traveled to OHSU on Friday for a regularly scheduled monthly checkup. Dr. Jonathan Davis told them he was leaving the program.

On Saturday, they got a phone call from Dr. James Mudd, another physician on the OHSU transplant team, who said the entire program was being put on hold.

For Howell, that means starting over with transplant programs in Seattle or the San Francisco Bay Area. But she wonders whether she will live long enough to get established in the other programs. She was given 18 months to live when she entered the OHSU program in July 2017.

"The doctors started leaving, they were dropping like flies," Howell said. "We were told it's not safe for the patients. There are not enough doctors to cover patients' needs."

Howell said she is one of about 30 people on OHSU's transplant list, though that number could not be confirmed. She called on the university to restore order and get the transplant unit back up and running.

"I just want OHSU to fix this," she said. "This is a wonderful program with great stats and really good doctors."

According to an internal memo obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive and signed by three top OHSU executives, the university is working with federal and internal programs to help affected patients.

A patient's position on the list is based on how well he or she matches with a donor, how sick they are, and how many donors versus patients are in the area.

OHSU is not the only program to take such a large step. Earlier this year, Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center in Houston temporarily suspended its heart transplant program after an unusually high number of patient deaths and reporting from the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica.

In 2016, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia paused its program for several months while it recruited new surgeons and cardiologists. The Medical University of South Carolina halted its program in 2014 after a patient died and other transplant recipients had weak hearts; it resumed the following year. St. Thomas Health in Nashville suspended its heart transplant program in 2011 when key staff left. It took five years to restart it.

--Molly Harbarger

503-294-5923

@MollyHarbarger

--Jeff Manning

503-294-7606

@JeffmanningOre