Nigeria: Organ donation, transplant need urgent attention

[Clark]

Organ donation, transplant need urgent attention —FG told
Sade Oguntola

Following increasing number of people requiring an organ transplant, a medical expert, Professor Babatunde Salako has called on the Federal Government to urgently address the serious ethical, legal and social issues relating to its donation and transplantation in the country.

Salako, a professor of medicine, gave the charge at the 58th postgraduate school interdisciplinary discourse on “Ethics and Legal Issues in Organ Procurement and Sale of Human parts” at the University of Ibadan.

The don, noting that Nigeria has no transplant law to ensure both doctors and patients are protected, said this is imperative now that commercial organ sale and transplant tourism had become a booming business in various parts of the world.

Although commercial donors, which means direct payment of money in exchange for organ donation is discouraged in the transplant world, he said organ sales and probably its theft is booming because more poor people and unemployed youths have taken to the business of selling their organs.

Professor Salako lamented that the practice of coercing family members or parents of a boy or girl to donate an organ also exists subtly in Nigeria.

According to him:”Data have however shown that in countries where this has been practised, paid donors end up back in debt and abject poverty with lower family income than before they sold their kidneys.

“Transplantation tourism has the potential of leading to abuse of human rights or in fact exploiting the poor. It may lead to unintended health consequences, provide unequal access to services and may ultimately cause harm either to the donor or the recipient.”

The expert, who declared that kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organs, followed closely by the liver and then heart, declared that with the current level of corrupt and poverty, the Federal Government need to redouble efforts even in its preparation for transplant law to monitor its activities in Nigeria.

He added that “there is a need for government to engage in public consultation and community engagement on the way forward concerning organ donation in living and diseased persons.

Professor Salako, who objected to outright sale of human organs by living donors, however suggested that the government should take over the burial expenses of those who donate their bodies after death to encourage cadaveric organ donation, adding that this is the practice in other climes.

Calling for the signing of the National Health Bill into law, he asked that the bill should be clear on the role of experimental xenotransplantation or transgenic organs as a research tool for future benefit and organs obtained from living donors.

He added that the current National Bealth Bill was silent on organs obtained from living donors, an area that is important because of its trafficking going on in different parts of the world.

“Already, Nigerians export their donors to the countries where the transplant operation will be done, in the current bill, there are no laws against exporting kidney donors or any other organs or tissue and there are no laws that target the recipient. All these need to be put in place.”

Professor Salako added that when the amended bill is eventually signed into law, government and relevant professional bodies would need to be proactive to ensure that sales of human parts does not become a secret business within hospital settings.