Hospitals told: Stop kidney transplants to foreigners

The Department of Health has warned hospitals from conducting kidney transplants on foreigners or face fines or revocation of licenses.

DOH undersecretary for operations Alexander Padilla, in an interview with The Freeman, said hospitals that are continuing to conduct kidney and other organ transplants on foreigners may be dealt with penalties.

Here in Central Visayas, two of three hospitals in Cebu City that were authorized to conduct organ transplants have been issued with cease and desist orders early April after a licensing team from DOH Central Office in Manila found that they exceeded the allowable number of foreigner recipients of organ Filipino donors.

The two hospitals are the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center and the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital. The third authorized hospital that has not been issued with the order is Chong Hua Hospital.

Padilla however said that the cease and desist order “is not the entirety of hospital operations but mainly on the organ transplants for foreigners.”

DOH-7 officer-in-charge Dr. Elaine Teleron also clarified that the order was only for the specialized portion on surgery, which is kidney transplant. It also specifies on the operation of donated kidneys and other organs with foreigner recipients, she said.

“The ban is specific; not to jeopardize the entire operations of the hospital,” Teleron said adding that the order was meant to enforce the 9:1 ratio on the number of Filipinos to foreigners as recipients of organ transplants.

Dr. Emmanuel Gines of VSMMC, in an earlier interview with The Freeman, said the hospital ethics committee has strictly enforce the ban already. He said that the the aim of organ donation is preservation of life so it is proper for health officials to look into the clandestine business of organ selling.

Kidneys are reportedly sold in Cebu at a price between P30,000 and P60,000. Some “sellers” go through middlemen who sold the organs to foreigners from P100,000 to P500,000 price range.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque had earlier issued an order enforcing the old provision regulating organ donation and transplants, which only allows 10 percent of the total number of foreigners entering the country to be recipients of organ from Filipino donors.

The new provision is set to be signed as a new order by President Gloria Arroyo next week but the Duque memorandum has been implemented among hospitals last March already. — Ferliza C. Contratista with reports from Anthony S. Teo, UP Mass Comm intern/RAE