A Wichita hospital has decided not to restart its kidney transplant program and instead focus its resources on areas where more people are affected.

Via Christi officials intend to beef up the hospital’s primary care facilities and behavioral health services, which serve far more patients than the transplant program did.

Via Christi suspended its kidney transplant program in May 2012 after four patients who had received transplants in the previous 12 months died within a three-week period and another suffered kidney failure but lived.

The hospital decided last year it would restart the program. But chief clinical administrative officer Carl Rider says with three transplant centers within a two- or three-hour drive form of Wichita, it made sense to focus on other areas.

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Associated Press information from: The Wichita Eagle