Cabral scores PBODT for eight foreigners’ kidney transplant

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral slammed yesterday the Philippine Board of Organ Donation and Transplantation (PBODT), chaired by the Department of Health, for allowing eight foreigners to undergo kidney transplantation despite a total ban on the procedure in the country.

In an interview, Cabral said the National Transplant and Ethics Committee (NTEC), which is under the PBODT, has violated Republic Act 9208, otherwise known as the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.

The board, headed by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, exempted the eight foreign patients for “humanitarian reasons” since they have been in the country before the ban.

On May 17, an Israeli patient underwent a kidney transplant at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City, Cabral said.

“Assuming that the PBODT and the NTEC want to exempt these eight foreigners from the ban for ‘humanitarian reasons,’ they should consider, at least equally, the implications of their ‘humanitarian’ act on the thousands of Filipinos who also urgently need treatment for kidney failure, as well as the thousands more whose poverty is being taken advantage of by syndicates involved in the commercialization of organ transplantation who recruit, broker, provide venues and facilities for the operations and perform foreign transplants for four million reasons other than altruism,” Cabral said in a statement.

“Assuming further that altruism is the only reason for the PBODT’s and NTEC’s recommendation to exempt these foreigners from the ban, may I suggest that it is but right that they each give one of their kidneys to these foreigners before they ask others to do so. If donating kidneys to total strangers for a small gratuity is the good thing to do, they should find it easy to convince their relatives and other loved ones to donate their kidneys also. Their good example should influence many others to do the same,” Cabral said.

RA 9208 defines trafficking in persons as “including the removal and sale of organs (e.g., kidneys) by means of fraud, deception, abuse of power or position and taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person, among other things.”

Cabral said she would meet with Department of Social Welfare and Development lawyers to discuss legal process to thwart the organ transplantation of seven more foreigners.

She said she was earlier challenged by Duque to file legal charges against the NTEC.

“I was really sad. As a physician, I cannot take what they are doing,” Cabral said in Filipino.

Cabral, however, said she and Duque remain friends despite their opposite opinions on the issue of organ donation.

President Arroyo has instructed Duque to follow a World Health Assembly resolution promoting cadaveric donation.

Earlier, Dr. Ernie Vera, DOH’s Organ Donation Program manager, said the exemption is limited to the eight patients because they are the only ones listed in the national data bank for kidney transplant.

“They are the only ones listed there. I don’t think there are other patients who can be exempted,” he said.

DOH records showed that in 2006, a total of 690 kidney transplantations were performed in the Philippines.

Sixty-three percent of the patients were foreigners, mostly from Arab nations.

Cabral said 99.99 percent of kidney donors from the Philippines are poor.

The PBODT issued a resolution banning foreign patients from getting kidneys from living donors who are not their blood relatives.

Technically, the resolution is not yet in effect because it has not been signed by the DOH executive committee and published in newspapers.