Immediate review needed on kidney racket

2018-03-02

Illegal human and organ trafficking is considered one of the most lethal and increasingly developing unconventional security threats to nation states. It's fast growing nature and widespread incidents that were reported, surpasses conventional global borders. Targeting both citizens of a nation state and its economic status (because most of the developing countries depend on the tourism industry and incidentally tourists are considered as prime victims for the illegal trade and human organ black market, thus having a direct impact on a state's economy) and forthwith challenging a country's integrity in enabling law and order, these unconventional security threats do not merely affect a nation state but also have an immense impact on human security as well.

Reports suggest that the trade is currently rampant in the South Asian and the Southeast Asian region with national leaders, showing little to no attention in addressing the matter. Fears of the trade and the black market reaching out to the heart of Colombo lingered for several years in the mainstream. With an alleged kidney racket, involving local medical practitioners performing unauthorized kidney transplants on willing foreigners, taking the media by a storm in 2016, the Government of Sri Lanka had taken immediate steps to addressing the matter. Two years later, the incident has raised its ugly head among the public once again and has reminded the Government and its slumbering officials that it requires immediate review.

The Black Market for human organs has proved to be thriving over the years; in fact, World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show that an organ is sold every hour. Patients' access to organ transplantation, however, varies according to the situation in their countries, and is partly determined by the cost of healthcare, the level of technical capacity and, most importantly, the availability of organs.

Following its climax in 2016, where reports of several deaths of foreigners who died during transplant surgery surfaced, several foreigners who allegedly arrived in the country to 'donate' organs for cash were arrested for visa violations, and with the revelation of the names of six Sri Lankan doctors who carried out the surgeries, under the payroll of Indian traffickers, the Government of Sri Lanka decided to temporarily stop transplantation operations being performed on foreigners in all hospitals. Although an inquiry into the six medical practitioners who were involved in the racket was conducted (which also included a famous member of the Government Medical Officer's Association, ironically) the matter has fallen into the gutter, forgotten and ignored as of yet.

Two years later, this is the progress.

Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine Rajitha Senaratne has announced that a National Organ Transplant Policy is in the pipelines for his ministry, prior to the ban being lifted. The aforementioned temporary ban on kidney transplants for foreigners in Sri Lanka is currently still in effect, much to everyone's surprise and has seemingly hit quite a blow to the kidney racket.

Following in the footsteps of Singapore adopting its model to base the supposed National Organ Transplant Policy - the ministry intends to advocate the Policy in place of the ban on operations. Accordingly, instead of the ban hindering a plausible monetary income that could be garnered via such operations, the Policy will set forth the legal background, ethics and guidelines on how to manage such an endeavour.

This is good. Up until 2016, when the Government took positive steps in addressing the matter, Sri Lanka had gathered enough potential of transforming into an illegal organ black market and hub for illegally harvested kidneys. With - if the Policy ever comes into play – it will undoubtedly make matters more manageable and prevent from adding another burden for the country to bear.