Nurses warn patient safety is at risk after transplant surgeons are fired

Twenty-seven operating-room nurses and five senior doctors at Rigshospitalet have warned that a shortage of surgeons could put patients at risk in the hospital’s transplant department, DR reports.

The nurses say they are concerned about the safety of patients who need highly specialised surgery, including liver transplants. “We hold patients’ lives in our hands, and we are worried about what patients will wake up to,” they wrote in a letter to hospital management.

The warning follows a letter from five surgeons at the Department of Transplantation and Diseases of the Digestive System, who raised concerns about patient safety and the department’s management and working environment. Three of the surgeons were sent home and later fired within a few weeks.

Two surgeons had left the department earlier in the year. The remaining surgeons questioned whether enough staff were available to carry out its highly specialised operations. The department is the only one in Denmark that performs liver transplants.

The nurses say the number of doctors who have left in a short time has made the situation critical. They are concerned that a lack of surgical skills, competence and experience could affect individual operations, and say the circumstances put patient safety at risk. They added that they felt professionally and ethically obliged to raise the alarm, citing increasingly unsafe conditions for staff as well as concern for patients. The nurses declined to be interviewed, fearing they could be fired.

Five senior doctors responsible for anaesthesia during liver transplants have also written to hospital management. They expressed concern about the current and future strength and quality of the hospital’s liver transplant service. They did not agree to interviews.

Both the nurses and the surgeons who were fired referred to an incident that the surgeons said “could have ended fatally.” The nurses said it had heightened their concerns.

After two surgeons left voluntarily in the spring and summer, the hospital reached an agreement with Oslo University Hospital under which a Norwegian surgeon took over transplant operations in Denmark. In 2025, 56 people in Denmark received a liver transplant, 23 were on the waiting list and two died while waiting, according to the Danish Centre for Organ Donation.

The Danish Health Authority has demanded an explanation from Rigshospitalet and asked whether it can safely continue performing liver transplants with fewer surgeons. The Danish Patient Safety Authority has also requested information about patient safety and treatment quality, while the Danish Cancer Society has sent a letter of concern to the hospital.