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T K Farooque, a hotel employee at Kannur, suffers from kidney problems and needs a transplant. He had identified a donor after well-wishers mobilised about a half million rupees for the surgery.
Though Sudhakaran, who offered to donate one of his kidneys, is a long time associate of Farooque, the Regional Authorisation Committee headed by Dr P R Chandran of the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital rejected the organ transplant in the absence of evidence to prove a strong attachment between the two.
Another patient, a 25-year-old woman, is surviving on dialysis as several donors cleared by a previous committee in the last few months were found to be victims of a kidney donation racket.
The repercussions of the racket are taking a heavy toll on patients as hospitals and doctors are extremely reluctant to clear kidney donations from non-relatives.
Patients suffering certain types of kidney problems depend on dialysis for survival. But it is very expensive. The alternative is to get a new kidney.
Of late, the authorisation committees, set up under the Central Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994, have been rejecting all cases involving donors not having a strong attachment with the recipients.
The Act makes commercial transactions in organ donation and their abetment a criminal offence.
The brakes were applied after a three-member panel of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which conducted an inquiry into some recent kidney transplants, had indicted a committee headed by Dr P R Chandran for its failure to detect the money transactions involved.
Kerala Health Minister P Shankaran said that the condition of kidney patients in the state was pitiable. "The government is helpless. What can the government do when people blow even minor cases out of proportion? We cannot force doctors and hospitals to take a lenient stand," he told mediapersons at Kochi on Friday.
Senior health officials defended the authorisation committees pointing out that the government was planning to register criminal cases after money transactions were detected in some recent transplants.
"No doctor would like to get entangled in police cases," said a senior official. Several health experts are in favour of amending the law since it is not easy to find kidney donors like blood donors, he said.
"The law permits payment to blood donors. If a similar approach is adopted in the case of kidneys, it would be a big boon to the rising number of patients with kidney problems," he added.
More reports from Kerala
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