TRANSPLANT RACKET A KIDNEY FOR A LIVING

TRANSPLANT RACKET

A KIDNEY FOR A LIVING
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main27.asp?filename=Ne030307A_kidney.asp

Hospitals, brokers and doctors in Tamil Nadu cash in on the desperation of the poor who sell their kidneysPC Vinoj Kumar
Chennai


The desperately poor in Tamil Nadu, many of them victims of the December 2004 tsunami, are being lured into selling their kidneys. Chennai has emerged as the kidney transplant capital of India though the racket is also flourishing in other cities in the state. Brokers or middlemen, who work in collusion with government and private hospitals, usually never pay the promised amount to the mostly illiterate donors. What is worse, doctors and brokers often remove a ‘donor’s’ kidney without his or her consent.

When 28-year-old Suresh Raju of Namakkal approached a friend for a Rs 50,000-loan, he was advised to donate a few bottles of blood for the money. He agreed and went to a hospital in Coimbatore with his friend, where he was administered sedatives. When he woke up he realised that one of his kidneys had been removed. According to sources in the police, as many as 500 people in Kumarapalayam and Pallipalayam areas of Namakkal district have sold their kidneys in the last few years. The poor sell their kidneys for as little as
Rs 30,000
while the recipients pay around
Rs 5 lakh
to the hospital



Chennai has become the kidney transplant capital of the Subcontinent. Those familiar with the kidney trade in the city say that it is easy to get a kidney if one is willing to spend a few lakh rupees. All one needs to do is to get admitted in one of the government registered hospitals that perform kidney transplants — there are 62 in the state — and rent a house near the hospital. Brokers take care of the rest.

No wonder then that patients from north India, and from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal, are heading to Chennai for a kidney transplant. According to the sources in the Tamil Nadu health department, at least 50 foreign nationals have undergone kidney transplants at hospitals in Chennai and Madurai in the last couple of years. “Some hospitals offer a total kidney (transplant) package, which includes a donor kidney, for Rs 5 lakh,” a health department source who wishes to remain anonymous, told Tehelka.
Suresh Raju went to a hospital in Coimbatore to donate blood. He was sedated and his kidney removed

The kidney trade has been flourishing in Tamil Nadu despite the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) 1994, which regulates the “removal, storage and transplantation of human organs.” The full magnitude of the racket came to light only after some tsunami-affected women in north Chennai confessed at a public hearing in January that their poverty had forced them to sell their kidneys.

On January 19, 34-year-old Mallika from Tondiarpet in north Chennai lodged a complaint with the police against a broker who she said had refused to pay her the promised Rs 1.5 lakh for her kidney. She said she had been paid only Rs 30,000.

Venkatalakshmi from Namakkal district also lodged a complaint with the police saying that she was raped in Coimbatore in November 2006 by two kidney brokers and a prospective donor. She had accompanied them to pose as the wife of the donor before the members of the authorisation committee (AC), the authority which grants approval for organ transplants. She said that one of the accused recorded visuals of the rape and unsuccessfully tried to blackmail her into accompanying them again for a similar job.

In a quick survey conducted in the fishing hamlets of north Chennai with the help of a social service organisation, Karunalaya, Tehelka identified 29 people — 26 men and 3 women — who had sold their kidneys.
‘I was assured the family would look after me for the rest of my life. It was a big lie,’ says 29-year-old Bhuvaneshwari

In addition to large sums of money, brokers also dole out false promises like life-long care for the donor. Twenty-nine-year old Bhuvaneshwari of Thideer Nagar sold her kidney for Rs 45,000 in 2003. “I believed the broker who assured me that the family would look after me for the rest of my life. But it was a big lie,” she laments.

K. Murugan, who lives in voc Nagar, sold his kidney in 2005 for Rs 45,000.

His broker took him to a hospital in Tirunelveli for the operation. “The recipient’s son told me to contact him in case I need any help. He gave me his address but it was false,” says Murugan.

S. Kumar, a resident of mth Road, was immediately able to recall the names of 10 residents of a nearby slum who had fallen prey to the racket. At Bharathi Nagar in Villivakkam, almost every home has one donor. “There are about 10 brokers in our area. Most of them are hiding in the wake of the media outcry over the kidney sales,” said K. Viji, a resident.

Many were forced to sell their kidney so that they could repay their debts. N. Paul Sundar Singh, director, Karunalaya, points out that the poor in north Chennai usually borrow from moneylenders at an exorbitant rate of interest. Like many others, Devi, 35, from Kasimedu, sold her kidney over her husband’s protests to save their family from the debt trap. She was taken to a hospital in Anna Nagar, where she says she met an employee who finalised the deal. “I don’t know whether he was a doctor or an agent. But he used to come to the hospital everyday in the afternoons,” she says.

A study conducted by the Centre for Sustainable Development, iit, Chennai, on the kidney trade in Tamil Nadu, refers to “contact persons” in hospitals who “may also help potential recipients in locating potential donors.” The study, conducted by Vangal R. Muraleedharan and S. Ram Prasad notes: “Most of these middlemen literally live in the premises of those hospitals which encourage the kidney business.”

The crime branch of the Tamil Nadu police (CB-CID) arrested three brokers on January 23 on the basis of Mallika’s complaint. In most cases, the kidneys have come from “unrelated” donors. According to official sources, Devaki, Kaliappa, and Apollo hospitals in Chennai; Madurai Meenakshi Mission and the Apollo hospital in Madurai; and the Kovai Medical Centre in Coimbatore have performed the most transplants in recent years.

Sources in the CB-CID said they are not empowered to conduct full-fledged investigations into the racket. The Authorisation Committee and the Appropriate Authority (AA) are the two main bodies supposed to oversee the implementation of THOA in each state. The most abused part of the THOA is Section 9 (3), which permits donation of human organs to an unrelated recipient for “reason of affection or attachment towards the recipient.” Most women kidney sellers said they were coached by brokers to tell the committee that they had been working as housemaids for the recipient for several years. Says 44-year-old E. Thamilselvi of Thideer Nagar, who posed before the AC as Kanniammal, a recipient’s neighbour. “It was my broker’s idea. We produced Kanniammal’s ration card as residential proof.”

A health department official pleaded helplessness in checking the racket. “It is not possible for the ac to verify the addresses provided by the donors and the recipients since the verification is time consuming. Moreover, it is a matter of life and death for patients,” he said.

Surprisingly, aa has not taken action against a single hospital or doctor so far despite the powers bestowed on it by THOA. Director of rural and medical services, Bava Fakhrudeen, who is also a member of the ac, promises stringent action in future. Nephrologists and urologists in Tamil Nadu have decided not to speak to the media on the issue. “We don’t want to create more confusion on the issue. Doctors are putting their heads together to come out with positive suggestions. We have decided not to speak until then,” he added