THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Organ racket’ (Feb 14) which dealt with the commercial removal of the kidney of a brick kiln worker in Rawalpindi and the need for a police probe to identify the gang and groups involved in this inhuman activity.

Punjab, no doubt, is considered the centre of organ trafficking, but no province is completely free of this menace. I was checking data on Pakistan published on the website of Cadaver Society, according to which Pakistan needs 50,000 transplantations for end-stage patients which included 15,000 kidneys and 10,000 livers.

This gap is difficult to fill. The Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA), which has been functioning since 2017, has stipulated a 10-year imprisonment on commercial transaction related to human organs. It is time to save patients and poverty-stricken people from exploitation. In this regard, the Senate was told that 16 doctors and 84 ‘agents’ had been booked for their alleged involvement in the organ racket. This shows that professional ethics and religious values are being ignored with impunity.

There is an urgent need to spread awareness in favour of cadaveric organ donation, and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) should frame a strict code of conduct for the doctors, warning them to refrain from getting involved in the completely unethical and seriously criminal trade of human organs.

How lucrative this racket has become can be seen from a recent report according to which a Filipino donated an Israeli patient his kidney through trafficking and got $500 for it. The actual sale, as it turned out, took place for $50,000.

The world is surely going bonkers. The more it talks of human rights and civilization, the more it works against those very entities. We need to come down hard on all elements involved in the heinous activity of organ trafficking.

Dr Hussain Bux Kolachi
Hyderabad

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2023