The Karachi Bioethics Group (KBG) in a meeting held on Monday took serious note of several media reports which indicate that private hospitals in Lahore and Rawalpindi have resumed their unethical practice of transplantation using kidneys bought from indigent citizens of Pakistan.
The most recent evidence comes in an email received from a transplant surgeon in Kuwait, which was also copied to WHO and the International Transplant Society among others. It provides details (including names of doctors) of a Kuwaiti patient transplanted furtively with a kidney, bought from a Pakistani citizen in Lahore.
The patient reveals that kidneys have also been arranged for other Kuwaitis. Desperate patients from other countries are being told by hospitals that they have special permission to transplant foreigners. It is sad to note that until recently kidney transplant packages were being advertised on the Internet by private hospitals in Lahore.
The government of Pakistan promulgated the Human Organs and Tissue Transplantation Ordinance in September 2007. This makes commercial dealings in organs a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment, and explicitly prohibits transplantation of kidneys from Pakistanis into non-citizens.
The Karachi Bioethics Group (KBG) expresses profound concern at recent reports of flagrant violations of this law, and sees this as a challenge and an opportunity for the government. KBG members request the Ministry of Health and the federally appointed monitoring authority to take action against those who blatantly advertised their illegal services on the Internet. The government must demonstrate its seriousness in putting an end to organ trafficking in Pakistan.-PR