There is a new rage in the UK.
The Sunday Times revealed results of an investigation and established that British victims of the economical crisis are offering their kidneys for £25,000 or more to pay off their debts.
Suddenly lots of adverts appeared on the net in order to offer kidneys. Some journalists went undercover as a friend of relative of a sick patient an negotiated with the kidney-donors.
One person willing to sell his kidney is a 26-year-old healthy nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after his business went bankrupt. Another person is a 43-year-old taxi driver from Lancashire, who wants to raise cash to pay off his mortgage and to be able to buy a new kitchen.They both want to help those in need of kidney transplants and at the same time they want to set themselves free from their financial difficulties.
Professor Peter Friend, a former president of the British Transplant Society declares that there has to be a debate really quickly about the whole phenomenon.
Nearly 7,000 people in the UK are waiting for kidney transplants and 300 died last year while on the waiting list.
I think that, if nothing is going to happen that this whole situation is going to escalate! There has to be some sort of databank for donors and people who offer a kidney have to be healty and strictly inspected. It has come too far and before we all know it, people are going to take advantage of this whole commercial situation. There has to be a discussion or some rules, otherwise, all the desperate people are going to sell their kidney without even knowing the consequences. Perhaps the government can intervene in this whole new rage and they better act fast.
Sources:
The Sunday Times online 27th of September 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6850879.ece ,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6850791.ece
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(Reaction by Bieke Demeester)
The fact that many people in the UK, want to sell a kidney to pay off their debts, is really staggering. I agree with Greet that the government need to determine legal rules for this. This situation makes me think of stories I heard from China: ‘Need a kidney? Buy one on the black market.’ I think the British government has to prohibit that people can sell their kidneys for money. In Belgium, there is a very strict law on donation of organs. Normally, when a kidney was given up by a donor, the kidney goes to the person on the top of a specific list. If it would be possible to buy a kidney, only the richest people could buy it. I think medical care must be equal for everyone! Besides, people who sell a kidney to pay off debts, are mostly not aware of the medical consequences in the long term. When you have debts, there are other possibilities to pay them off.
It is very generous to give away a kidney to help sick people but the people mentioned in the article are doing it for a wrong raison namely to pay debts or to by something new. I agree with Greet that the whole situation will escalate! I had the same question about the health of the people who are giving away their kidney. Not everybody can give away an organ just like that without any medical advice just because their financial situation is bad. There will have to be strict rules concerning kidney-donors and some kind of information about the consequences of it. I think that many people do actions like that without thinking. The government has to do something about this new rage.
(By Hanne Snoeck)
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