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ISLAMABAD: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction for the government to devise protocols and rules to prevent violation of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissue Act, 2010.
The court has been requested to make available to the Human Organ Transplantation Authority (Hota) the assistance of an effective and specialised investigating agency like the FIA for probing into possible violations of the act.
The petition has been filed by Advocate Muneer A. Malik on behalf of Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jehangir, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan chairperson Zohra Yousuf, Edhi Foundation chairman Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi, Professor of Urology Dr Anwer Naqvi, Sindh Education Foundation president Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee, journalist Zubeida Mustafa, Support Trust chairman Syed Mohammad Shabbar Zaidi, Sheikh Zayed Islamic Research Centre’s director Dr Noor Ahmed Shahtaz, Associate Professor Dr Aamir Jafarey, consultant nephrologist Dr Tufail Mohammad and professor of pathology Dr Mirza Naqi Zafar.
The petitioners say that the modus operandi of hospitals and doctors violating the law is very sophisticated and commercial transplants taking place frequently involve foreigners.
They have pleaded the court to direct appointment of an individual at every recognised hospital or medical institute to monitor and ensure strict implementation of the act.
The court has been requested to direct Hota to register complaints and provide information about the complaints it receives and the investigative measures it takes.
The petition said that unscrupulous elements had led Pakistan to becoming an international hub of organ trafficking and a destination for ‘transplant tourism’.
In the absence of an effective law, some 2,500 kidney transplants were performed by 2007 in Pakistan, it said. Around 1,500 of them were performed for the benefit of foreign patients. It was estimated that 80 per cent of such transplants were between unrelated living donors and recipients where the former was paid for the donation of his/her kidney.
Patients from Europe, India and the Middle East would visit Pakistan and pay anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000 for a transplant, which included the purchase of a kidney from a living donor.
Invariably, such commercial donors were destitute, impoverished and uneducated people who were lured by middlemen working hand in glove with unscrupulous hospitals and medical practitioners.
The petition cited a survey that showed 90 per cent of 239 commercial kidney donors in Sargodha district were illiterate, 66 per cent bonded labourers and 93 per cent of them had sold kidneys to pay off their debts.
The average price paid to such donors for a kidney ranged between Rs50,000 and Rs200,000, leaving a handsome margin for the middlemen and the doctors and hospitals involved.
The petition claimed that commercial trade in human organs was growing unabated. It also cited a number of complaints made by senior doctors.
