JOIN USForeigners to wait longer for kidney transplant in State
Foreign patients have to wait far longer than earlier to get approval for a live kidney transplant in Karnataka. This is an after-effect of the kidney racket that was busted recently in Ramanagar district and could hurt the State government’s efforts to promote medical tourism.
The government’s authorisation committee, which approves these transplants after document verification, hasn’t met the representatives of private hospitals for over a month now. Before the kidney racket surfaced, the committee would hold the meeting every week and process the applications for transplant.
Consider the case of Soala (name changed), a Nigerian national who has been in Bengaluru for nearly two months now to get a kidney transplant. Following the kidney racket, her wait appears endless.
Speak to doctors at the private hospital where she is being treated and the reason is clear. “In case of live kidney transplant for a foreign patient, the government’s authorisation committee at the Institute of Nephro Urology must give approval. We have many patients awaiting this,” said a private medical practitioner. “Following the Ramanagar case, we are told the documents have been seized. The committee must meet private hospital representatives, verify the documents and grant the approval.”
Similar is the case of a foreign couple who are awaiting kidney transplant at a hospital which does not have an additional authorisation committee of its own. “Since we cannot keep them waiting them endlessly, the hospital is contemplating having them shifted to another hospital which has an additional authorisation committee,” said a nephrologist treating them.
P S Vastrad, Commissioner, Health and Family Welfare, said they saw the issue coming. “Doctors who are part of the committee have approached us with a request to get the document verification done by others as they wish to focus only on the medical and surgical parts of the transplant,” he said. “They feel it’s a challenge to get the verification done. Fear factor could be another reason why they haven’t met.”
Govt committee looks into
Organ transplants involving foreign nationals
Whether the proposed donor and the recipient are near relatives (grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, grandson and granddaughter).
If the proposed donor and the recipient are not near relatives, make sure there are no middlemen involved, verify documents and the photographs produced and look for reasons why the donor is not a near relative.