Following Scandal, Punjab To Regulate Organ Transplants

Hospital Denies News Reports Of Wrongdoing

Most Kidney Buyers Are Middle Easterners: Expert

By Waqar Gillani

March 7, 2004

LAHORE: Following news reports on the illegal and unethical transplant of organs here in the city, the government announced Saturday the formation of a review committee.

Speaking at the opening session of the Fifth National Conference of Urology, Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed said the committee would be formed within two weeks and would recommend legislation to ensure all organ transplants are consensual.

Mr Javed said the committee would also prepare a feasibility report for the establishment of a kidney and liver transplant institution in the Punjab, modelled after the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant. He said the Punjab institute should be up by yearend.

Press accounts yesterday claimed that Akram Medical Complex here in Lahore was "stealing" kidneys of low-income patients. The hospital denies the reports.

Dr Shehla Javed Akram, chief executive of the Complex and the mother of a Daily Times editor, said the hospital was not involved in any kind of kidney theft, which she said was impossible procedurally. She denied there was any "Dr Faisal" at the hospital and said records did not show any patient "Saqib" there either.

"We are examining records from the previous year, just to be sure," said Dr Akram, adding, "We have never done any transplant where the donor was not from the family of the patient." The media, she said, should be more responsible. Dr Akram endorsed the idea of passing legislation regulating kidney transplants.

The minister, Mr Javed, said he doubted news accounts of the kidney theft at Akram Medical Complex but said the charges should be investigated nonetheless.

He said he was aware that a mafia was involved in the purchase of kidneys from poor people. "This is a challenge to the government and the doctors," he said.

Mr Javed said that his government had made little progress in stopping the illegal kidney trade in the Punjab. He added that sales and transplants of kidneys took place in private, not public hospitals. Mr Javed said the federal government was already working on the issue and would provide assistance to the Punjab.

Experts said lack of proper legislation, growing poverty and ignorance were the main reasons that the trade in human organs was flourishing.

Prof Fateh Khan Akhtar, head of the board of management at Mayo Hospital, said he doubted kidney theft was possible because of the complicated transplant procedures. Urologists Prof Farrukh Ahmed Khan and Prof Muhammad Nawaz Chughtai agreed.

Dr Akhtar said organs should be donated only by the relatives of the patients or by the dead. Most people who sell their organs are poor and unemployed, he said. "Now, people are going to villages to motivate the poor to donate their organs," said Dr Akhtar. "This greed for money comes from both doctors and the donor families."

Dr Khan said an improvement of the kidney donation system is imperative. Most of the kidneys that are bought from Pakistan land up abroad, he said. "It is not uncommon for patients from UAE and Saudi Arabia to show up here for transplants," he added.

Dr Chughtai suggested the government control the sale of organs by creating a single oversight body, where all organs could be donated and purchased. "Such a system is in place in Iran and Kuwait and working well," he said.

Copyright © 2004 The Daily Times (Pakistan).

This article posted March 23, 2004.