Kidney Transplant Black market in the Phils.

[cris]

Lat night as I was watching a filipino news channel, I thought I should post something about the prevalent and getting serious "kidney black market in the Phils." Maybe because of the love and the being in the family feeling that you have given me.. However, I was more alarmed when I treaded on the demised thread of mitchorganbroker. Am really glad that the late great Epoman had ended the thread.
I am a filipino 100% and have my mother on dialysis just last September due to her diminishing size of kidneys. She has only 15% GFR function. Doctors said this has been due to her prolonged intake of arthritis painkillers and partly of her 78 years of age. Since then, I have exhausted every means to get information, get educated on this ESRD disease which is causing much pain to my family. I am really glad that I stumbled upon this website. All the more I feel indebted to you to share some truths about the demised thread. Honestly, this is not to fan or resurrect the discussions of the old thread. My only wish is to hopefully enlighten you more of the truth, as you have become my extended family.
Phils.'s Kidney paid donors are only getting as much as $1,500 no more maybe less. I know, I am from the Phils. The lucky ones if they donated through the government accredited transplant program gets a health insurance after the transplant. The donors are from the poorest of the poor being conned, sweet talked, ignorant in every ways, given the only hope of being able to give a brighter future to their love ones. Apparently, there have been so many opportunistic people who took and is taking advantage of the ignorant poor. It is true that there are Phil. doctors that would charge you sky high once you are a foreigner but these doctors are doctors from the undesired group of professionals. You are on the wrong side of the deal if you chance on these doctors. They treat not to preserve life and morally serve but for pure profit to themselves. In all races, you have this kind.
The street children in the phils. begging for cents, knocking on car windows, stays away everytime "mitch" does the "nose spit" because it sends the children the signal that this guy is a filthy pedophile foreigner. That is our culture I am speaking from.
Finally, Yes, it is true, the Phils. offers and can equal the advance technologies in the U.S. but this is only for the "can afford" society. The social disparity is so huge, if not I won't be here in the Mariana Island for 15 years as a contract worker, hurdling and trying to stomach all the racial discrimination I have had in my life being an alien from a third world country.
If anyone contemplates on having a transplant in the Phils., please go to the national Kidney Transplant Institute (NKTI). Stay away from the scrupulous vultures.


All My Love,
cris

[Sluff]

Thank you cris for your input on this subject. I'm sorry for all the discrimination you have experienced in spite of your nationality. When will people learn that we are all (Gods)( my belief) children and we are all equal in his eyes. No matter a persons nationality it is his/her own works that should define them.

As far as mitchorganbroker: I never appreciated the thread he was allowed to have however Epoman made a deal with him and allowed it to exist in order to balance out the fact that there may be IHD members that believe what Mitch believed and wanted every member here to have that opportunity to make up their own minds as to what was best for them. Mitch went against the deal that Epoman and he had agreed to live with and has repeatedly tried to join IHD under other member names, because of this he was banned, and every time he comes back or attempts to come back he is banned again. Please understand he was not banned for his views, he was banned for breaking the rules that he and Epoman agreed to.

I just wanted to explain this as there are some on this board that may have disagreed with the bans set forth.

Keeping things positive I appreciate your post in defense of the govt and Doctors in the Phillipines who do offer real hope and do there best to help the patient.

[stauffenberg]

The news media love to dramatize and sensationalize stories like those of purchased organ transplants, but, as all of us truly sick people know all too well, when the news media run medical stories, they never, ever get their facts straight.  That is especially true with respect to purchased organs in the Philippines.

As every Filipino knows, for native residents of the Philippines the ORDINARY, NORMAL, and LEGAL way to get a kidney for donation if there are no relatives who can or will donate is to buy a kidney from a fellow Filipino.  I wonder why, if this is so acceptable when it occurs among Filipinos, it suddenly becomes unacceptable when a foreigner is the purchaser?

The disparity of wealth in the Philippines is a tragedy and a moral outrage, but when foreigners travel to the Philippines and pay $80,000 for a transplant which really costs the doctors and the hospitals only about $30,00 to perform, that helps rather than hurts the local economy, thus contributing to relieving poverty in the Philippines.  Donors in Mitch Michaelson's program -- and I know this because I have spoken to them in person -- tell me they receive $3000 for their donation plus medical insurance for life for free -- which is an excellent price in a country where 25% of the people are unemployed and the average salary for those lucky enough to have a job is only $2000 a year.  If the donors willingly agree to donate, would you show paternalistic contempt for them by denying them their autonomous right to make this choice?  Would you prefer that they starve, that they not be able to provide food, schooling, and clothing for their children, because you want the right to decide for them that they have to prefer to keep an extra kidney which is not necessary for life or even health, as numerous scientific studies have proved?

As far as exploitation goes, it is a general principle of contract law that a contract will be void for duress if one party has no choice but to enter into the contract in order to save his life, while the other party only enters into the contract voluntarily, since he only needs it to make money.  In the famous case of Post, whalers stranded in the Arctic were met by a rescue ship which demanded a huge price from them to rescue them, and since the whalers had no other way to save their lives, they agreed to the price.  But once they were rescued, the courts refused to enforce the contract, finding it illegitmate exploitation of the whalers since they had no choice but to make the contract to save their lives.  The same exploitation goes on in kidney sales: the Filipino wants some extra money, but he can find another way to make money if he wants.  But the kidney patient needs the kidney or he will die, so it is he, NOT the Filipino, who is being abused and exploited by having to pay for the kidney.

If you have a pair of people 20 years old, one having two kidneys and the other having none, the amount of human life that will be enjoyed by the pair will be about 80 years more -- an additional 60 years for the person with the two kidneys and 20 years for the person with none.  But if you just redistribute the kidneys and give one kidney to each of the two, the amount of human life in this pair is now increased dramatically, to about an additional 100 years -- 60 years for the person starting with two kidneys, and now 40 years for the person getting the transplant.  It is obviously more moral to prefer the greater amount of human life to the lesser amount, so from this it follows that transplanting spare kidneys from those with two to those with none is a moral act.