DOH warned vs favoring Israeli kidney patients

MANILA, Philippines – A group of doctors warned the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday it might be violating Israeli law by allowing eight Israelis to undergo kidney transplant procedures in the Philippines.

In a letter to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Dr. Benita Padilla, Philippine Society of Nephrologists president, said Israel has barred Israeli insurance companies from covering kidney transplants performed outside of Israel.

“Should we not verify whether the patients coming to the Philippines and/or their insurance companies are violating the rules of their country?” she asked.

“Surely we would not want the Philippines to be in the difficult position of having assisted the citizen of another country to break their own laws,” she said.

Padilla warned the government against making decisions without reflecting on possible ramifications from medical as well as legal points of view.

“While a humanitarian concern for the recipients is commendable, this must be matched with a humanitarian concern for the donors also,” she said.

In a statement, Undersecretary Mario Villaverde, DOH officer-in-charge, said the Philippine Board on Organ Donation and Transplantation (PBODT) exempted the eight Israelis from the ban for “humanitarian considerations” two weeks ago.

The Israeli patients were already on the waiting list of the national organ transplantation program even before the ban was announced, he added.

Villaverde said the PBODT’s National Transplant Ethics Committee had recommended the exemption because the patients followed the medical and ethical procedures.

“The foreigners, all Israelis, registered and have waited and followed due process at the time of their registration in December 2007,” he said.

Chaired by Duque, the PBODT is a collegial body comprised of different sectors, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, the Professional Regulation Commission, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, the Philippine Urological Association, and the Philippine Society of Transplant Surgeons.  – Sheila Crisostomo