Cash for kidneys

Surging demand for kidney transplants among diabetes-stricken Gulf States is forcing many patients from the region to travel to Egypt in search of organs from desperate donors.

Dr Mustafa Ahmed has seen the raw, curved scar running from his patients' hipbone to their pelvis more times than he can remember. It is the scar left by a kidney transplant operation - not one that he has carried out.

But he sometimes has to clear up the mess in the form of post-operative infections and other complications resulting from botched operations carried out overseas, and brokered by middlemen helping to match desperate donors with prospective transplant patients.

Egypt has become the most popular destination for people from the Gulf seeking kidney transplants and unable to find organs at home. Many have their details falsified by the clinics they attend, because it is illegal for foreign patients to undergo transplantation in the country.

"I had one man return from Egypt literally three days after his transplant, with a kidney drain in situ and sutures and a central line [still attached]," the consultant nephrologist at Dubai's Welcare Hospital tells Arabian Business.

Regional nephrologists and the Egyptian Ministry of Health have confirmed that a number of hospitals in Egypt have falsified hospital documents.

"Reports are templated; there is no name of the patient, hospital, doctor or the institute... it doesn't even mention the name of the patient, just that they had a kidney transplant; even the date has been changed," says Dr Sadiq Abdulla, a consultant vascular and renal transplant surgeon at Salmaniya Medical Complex in Bahrain.

"They play with the papers," confirms Dr Abdel-Rahman Shahin, a spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Health.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health is investigating six cases of malpractice following a series of illegal transplant operations which included five patients from Saudi Arabia and one from Palestine. Four doctors have so far lost their jobs. "We have detected several cases of violations," adds Dr Shahin.

Regional specialists estimate as many as 150 patients from the Gulf states travel to Egypt to undergo illegal transplant surgery annually.

The numbers have increased since the Philippines, once a hot spot for illegal surgery, stopped the treatment of foreign patients seeking transplant surgery in April 2008 in response to international pressure.

"Since the other countries like the Philippines and Pakistan closed their doors, there are so many other places [Egyptian hospitals] that have seen this as a golden opportunity for them to cash in on patients," says Dr Abdulla.

He has seen eight patients this year admitted to his hospital following complications from transplant surgery which took place in Egypt.

"A new door has been opened in Egypt," he continues. "We think it's done through a network of agents, who take patients to unknown hospitals where they are treated by unknown doctors."

According to Kuwait's assistant undersecretary for medical services at the Health Ministry, Dr Yousif Al-Nesef, 11.2 percent of Kuwaitis between the ages of 20 and 65 are diabetic while the Bahraini Health Ministry estimates more than a quarter of Bahrainis have developed type 2 or adult-onset diabetes.

"We have approximately 11,000 people on dialysis [in Saudi Arabia] now, 25 percent of which are because of diabetes... but our expectation is that in a few years time we'll have more than 40 percent on dialysis because of diabetes," says Dr Faisal Shaheen, director general of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplants (SCOT), who adds the kingdom has around 4000 patients waiting for kidney transplants.

READERS' COMMENTS

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM