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‘Pakistan being dubbed cheap kidney bazaar’

By Maryam Hussain

ISLAMABAD: The Health Ministry made a startling disclosure in the last cabinet meeting that rich foreigners suffering from kidney ailments from all over the world were visiting Pakistan as part of their ‘transplant tourism’ after this ill-fated country earned the stinking reputation of cheap ‘kidney bazaar’.

“The incidents of kidney selling by the poor are on the rise. Patients from certain developed countries visit Pakistan to buy organs for transplantation at local kidney centres,” reveals an official summary of the Health Ministry submitted before the cabinet that met to discuss a host of issues on Wednesday.

Earlier, it was disclosed in one of the sittings of the Senate Standing Body on Health that citizens of Arab countries and India were particularly coming to Pakistan to buy kidneys from the poor with the help of local agents working in private hospitals in Rawalpindi.

Meanwhile, the cabinet which met with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was also given startling figures about the sale of kidney in open market at as low as Rs 100,000. According to the available copy of the official summary of the Health Ministry signed by Secretary Syed Anwar Mahmood, now time had come to bring a law to curb this unethical practice of illegal transplantation of kidneys in Pakistan.

The summary said that several stories had been circulated in the foreign press regarding ‘transplant tourism’ in Pakistan in which it has been alleged that there is a big racket going on about kidney transplantation. The summary said the disturbing fact is that now Pakistan has been dubbed as a ‘kidney bazaar’ where cheap kidneys are available in abundance.

Ministry documents said this kidney racket highlights not only the illegal practice of selling kidneys but also performing the transplants without even certifying the antecedents of the donors. A copy of the draft bill on the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues was also submitted before the cabinet for approval before forwarding it to the parliament for enactment.

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