DOH to ban kidney transplants for foreigners

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) is set to impose a total ban on foreigners undergoing kidney transplant in the Philippines as a way to stop the commercialization of the procedure.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III will announce the ban in a press conference scheduled today.

According to Health Undersecretary Alex Padilla, the ban was a decision of the Philippine Board for Organ Donation and Transplantation (PBODT) created last month through a new Administrative Order covering transplant procedures.

Padilla told The STAR that the ban is a strategy to end the black market in kidney transplant operations in the Philippines among foreign recipients.

He said the new policy is in accordance with the stand of the World Health Organization (WHO) against foreign transplantation.

The DOH earlier stopped some 10 hospitals nationwide from performing kidney transplants after they violated the 10-percent quota imposed for foreign patients. 

There are 22 hospitals in the Philippines that are capable of performing transplants. 

Under an old DOH Administrative Order, each hospital is allowed to allocate only 10 percent of their transplant surgeries to foreign patients and the rest of the slots must be allocated to Filipino patients.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Enrique Ona, president of the  Philippine Society of Transplant Surgeons and director of the DOH-run National Kidney and Transplant Institute, welcomed the measure.

“That’s a welcome move because that is the response of the board to the commercialization of transplantation,” he added.

The medical profession and the dominant Roman Catholic Church have raised concerns over the rampant trafficking of kidneys by impoverished and poorly educated Filipino “donors.”

They can sell one of their kidneys for about $3,000 to Arab or Western recipients.

A total of 436 kidney transplants from unrelated living donors were carried out in 2006 in 24 Philippine hospitals, according to government figures.