Transplant trade big in Third WorldClients from Europe, the U.S., Asia and CanadaBy JOE WARMINGTON
Fri, February 8, 2008
If you are looking for a saving on your next kidney transplant, check out Incredible IndiaHealthcare.com.
The Internet site boasts a cut-rate deal of $16,500 to get a kidney transplant in India. How about a liver transplant for $45,000, bone marrow for $24,000 and pancreas transplants for $27,000 -- with no PST or GST in fact?
It's surreal to check out all that they claim you can get done surgically on the web -- some sites even have safe payment plans through a major Canadian bank.
It's no joke but you can't help but do a double take when you look at the kind of services and organs that are available. In fact the transplant trade -- legal or illegal -- is big business in the Third World and make no mistake the customers are from Europe, the United States, Asia and Canada.
The moral of the story is perhaps the horror just may not end with the so-called Dr. Horror of Brampton finally being held in custody in Nepal. In fact, Toronto kidney specialist Dr. Jeff Zaltzman is pretty sure the arrest of the 40-year-old alleged black market organ harvester and salesman Amit Kumar yesterday is not going to stop any of this from going on.
Click here to find out more!
How does he know this?
"I see about five or six patients a year who have had transplants from operations in other countries," the St. Michael's Hospital nephrologist told the Sun last night.
In other words, Canadians are among the hundreds of thousands who will travel abroad for such procedures.
"You have to look beneath the surface" of just how safe and above board this method is, says Zaltzman.
Some are done legally and professionally and some are not. Zaltzman can always tell the difference.
"You can tell by the kinds of disease and infections you find with the patients who come to us after their surgery for treatment," he said.
Either way Canadian doctors treat them and are in no real legal position to ask where and how they received these organs. Sometimes, says Zaltzman, the patient will tell them everything.
MAKESHIFT VS. TOP-NOTCH
Having a kidney or liver transplant in a makeshift operating room in a hotel in Pakistan, Bangladesh or India is not an appropriate substitute for a top-notch, sterile and modern hospital. But sometimes people will go where the organs are. And they will pay to get one.
"The average wait for a kidney in Ontario is seven to 10 years," says Zaltzman. "And some people are desperate."
And that's where the profiteers come in and, if what is alleged in the spectacular international case involving Brampton's Kumar, foul play, intimidation, impersonation, abuse, and an all-out organ theft ring that could have involved up to 500 victims.
Out at his posh $600,000 spacious home in north Brampton, neighbours seemed stunned that such a notorious and wanted alleged criminal, dubbed by media around the world as "The Kidney Kingpin," could be living next to them.
Of course the courts will ultimately decide Kumar's fate and you can see with the Dr. Horror and Kidney Kingpin moniker it will make a great book and a movie one day. But perhaps with so many Canadians taking part it should also become an investigation the RCMP and Immigration Canada might want to dive into -- for all kinds of reasons including protecting the vulnerable on both sides of this issue.
No matter what happens it's quite clear the trafficking of illegal organs is not going anywhere any time soon. Or perhaps even ones that purport to be legal.
One search on the World Wide Web and you'll find many medical tourism websites -- some even listing the price of what it would cost to get a transplant. These websites and companies offer many services and operations and are many times legal and competent.
But you have to do your diligence if you are going to go on the Internet to find a kidney as thousands apparently do.
Some of these websites have in the fine print that you have to provide your own donor but Zaltzman says in some cases he suspects it can be a nudge, nudge, wink, wink scenario since if you had a kidney or liver to be surgically inserted, there would be no need to leave the universal health-care system in Canada to go to the private clinics of the Third World.
Vancouver's Yasmeen Sayeed, president & CEO of Surgical Tourism Canada Inc., is also suspicious.
"I don't think (Kumar) is the only one," she said from Mexico last night where she has taken two patients for "cosmetic surgery."
She takes no part in the transplant game. "Never," she said. "But I do get hundreds of inquiries about it. I always say no."
She has actually been approached by people in Canada about offering her a cut to help facilitate some.
SURGICAL TOURISM
One guy asked her if she wanted a cut in a $75,000 operation. So she knows it goes on and she feels it tarnishes what she does which is above-the-board surgical tourism -- which takes a person to a foreign country for a surgery not covered by the state and combines it with a resort vacation.
"When I go to India, I only go to reputable hospitals," she said.
But there are some there who are not so reputable -- which is what Kumar is alleged to have been part of. In addition to the alleged illegal activity of buying and selling of organs, he is also accused of harvesting for scandalous money such organs from the very poor -- sometimes stealing them at gunpoint.
"It's despicable," said Zaltzman. "It takes it to a whole new level."
And while he understands why people who don't want their time to run out on life might be tempted to go this route for a new kidney, he still warns it is not a safe way to go because you really don't know what you are getting or where they are getting it.
"We don't recommend it," he said.
No matter how low they mark down a kidney transplant.
• You can call Joe Warmington at (416) 947-2392 or e-mail at joe.warmington@sunmedia.ca
• Have a letter for the editor? E-mail it to torsun.editor@sunmedia.ca
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Warmington_Joe/2008/02/08/4834811-sun.php
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Author
