KARACHI, March 20: Expressing concern over the resurgence of the illegal kidney trade in the country, health professionals and human rights activists have urged the relevant authorities to take action against those involved in the unethical practice and bringing the country into disrepute.

These observations were made during a press briefing at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) on Thursday.

The speakers asked the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and other relevant bodies to suspend the registration and membership of the kingpins of this inhuman business, including retired government officials and former servicemen.

The speakers also referred to recent disclosures made by a urological consultant and surgeon based in the Middle East. He claimed that unrelated live kidney transplants were being carried out in some parts of Punjab for foreigners and expressed the fear that there were chances of resurgence of so-called transplant tourism on a broader scale in Pakistan and other countries in the region.

The newsmen through video presentations and website references were briefed about the plight of the poor citizens of Pakistan, both male and female, exploited largely by unscrupulous elements in the health sector and their middlemen, who still continued luring the foreigners seeking kidneys, irrespective of the relevant human organ transplant ordinance which criminalised living organ sales or cadaver donations by Pakistanis to foreigners.

The director of the SIUT and president-elect of the Transplant Society of Pakistan, Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi, said that the recent reports about illegal transplant activities bore ample testimony to the government’s failure to check the menace of illegal organ trade in the country.

He deplored that it was due to the greed of a few individuals, including medical practitioners, that Pakistan had been dragged to a position where it had stood around 17-18 years ago as far as the struggle against the illegal organ trade was concerned.

Dr Rizvi was of the view that if the government failed to take much-needed action, members of civil society would once again have to join hands for the cause.

The SIUT director said that the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance (THOTO), 2007, existed only on paper and no institutional protection had been given to the quarters seeking ethical transplants in the country.

He stressed the need for making the Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA) more effective and also asked the PMDC to take some initiatives in this regard by penalizing the doctors involved in the trade.

Dr Sajjad Hussain of the Pakistan Association of Urological Surgeons, who came from Lahore for the press briefing, said that corrupt elements had certainly challenged the writ of the government. The government should ensure the sanctity of THOTO by increasing the capacity of the relevant bodies and strengthening it by approving a bill in the national assembly.

A representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Ghazi Salahuddin, said that reports of an illegal kidney trade in the country was indicative of the control of underworld criminals over the health sector.

At a time when a new parliament was being brought into being, the role of civil society members had increased tremendously and a joint action plan should be finalised to mobilise the newly-elected legislators on the issues of respectable lifestyle and health rights of the people in the country, he said.

Dr Farhat Moazzam, chairperson of the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT, said that HOTA should take proper measures to disseminate information about THOTO provisions not only within the country but also abroad, as a number of websites were conveying misleading messages to foreign kidney patients.

Answering a question as to why the PMDC or other professional bodies of doctors and specialists did not go for the suspension of memberships of the practitioners involved in the racket, Prof Anwar Naqvi of the SIUT said that doctors under criticism were not members of the Transplant Society of Pakistan or the Pakistan Society of Nephrology and they had formed an association of their own to conduct their nefarious activities.