LAHORE: Acting on official data that revealed that government hospitals in Punjab were performing far fewer organ transplants than their full potential — leaving the field open for illegal practitioners and organ harvesting — the Pun­jab Human Organ Transplant Autho­rity (PHOTA) has initiated a probe into government and private hospitals to assess the facilities they offer with the objective to promoting legal surgical procedures.

The development emerged after official figures depicted a small number of transplant surgeries performed at the 60 health facilities registered by the authority across the province.

According to official data, the government hospitals registered with PHOTA have performed only 40 per cent of the total 44,000 organ transplant procedures during the last four years. Out of these, 95pc of the surgeries were performed at just two health facilities of Lahore — the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute and Shaikh Zayed Hospital. These included liver, kidney, cornea and bone marrow transplants.

The Lahore commissioner has dispatched a list of public and private hospitals — prepared by PHOTA — to the departments concerned about the schedule of inspection by the authority. It has asked the hospitals to nominate senior doctors and other staff members to be part of the inspection teams or assist them during their visits to respective health facilities.

The authority stated that it intends to inspect the registration and renew registration of the health facilities for kidney, liver and cornea transplant.

An official said the purpose was to register new hospitals and renew those already on the panel following multiple complaints of insufficient number of surgeries as compared to their increasing demand, prompting patients to opt for illegal procedures.

These complaints particularly pertained to government hospitals of Lahore, he said.

The official lamented that the PHOTA-registered public hospitals, including Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, Lahore General Hospital, Faisalabad’s Allied Hospital and Multan’s Nishtar, had almost discontinued life-saving organ transplants without offering reasons.

Consequently, the illegal trade, harvesting and transplant of organs are flourishing in Punjab, which is evident from several rackets unearthed recently, he added.

Thus, after days of deliberations, the PHOTA shortlisted the public and private hospitals of Lahore region for inspection to ensure resumption of renal, liver and cornea transplant procedures.

Earlier, the FIA had busted a transnational gang involved in illegal organ transplant in Lahore with contacts in China. The agents would allegedly lure poor and needy people to sell their liver and kidney for the organ transplant to be performed in China.

In January, a joint team of the PHOTA and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had busted a huge racket of doctors involved in performing illegal kidney transplants in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2022