Pakistan kidney transplants worry Trinidad
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (AFP): The deaths of
three Trinidadians who received kidney transplants in Pakistan are causing
local doctors to query the procedures, local press reported Tuesday.
The Trinidad and Tobago Medical Association was shocked by the practice of
agents who lure Trinidadians to Pakistan for transplants, its public relations
officer said. "The practice is unethical and
should never been allowed," Hari Maharaj told the Trinidad Express newspaper.
He said the association was vigorously taking up the matter.
The three patients died within weeks of returning home, after paying 19,000
dollars each for the operation, according to the Express.
However, Abu Bakr Khan, who has been described as a kidney transplant
coordinator based in Pakistan, told the paper that hospitals in that country
were performing the operations along accepted standards.
According to the report, he made arrangements for some 30 patients from
Trinidad to have such transplants at four hospitals: Massood, Mumtaz, National
and Shariff. The operation became popular
because it costs a fraction of it costs in the United States and Canada.
Leading urologist Lall Sawh was quoted as saying Trinidad should enact a bill
that would allow harvesting of organs from cadavers in Trinidad.
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