Bishop defends kidney transplants for foreigners

MANILA, Philippines - A Roman Catholic bishop who sits in the kidney board on Wednesday defended the Department of Health exemption given to eight foreign patients who need a transplant. “It was purely for humanitarian reason that they were given exemption. They’ve been here before the ban and were part of the DOH (Department of Health) program prior to the recent ban on foreigners," Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros, who sits as a member of the Philippine Board of Organ Donation and Transplantation (PBODT), said. His remarks were aired over the church-run Radio Veritas Wednesday. Aside from Oliveros, a nun - Sister Roseann Mallilin - also sits as member of the board. Mallilin is the executive director of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' National Secretariat for Social Action or Nassa. The two were invited by government to act as the church’s representatives to the PBODT after taking into consideration the clergy’s strong opposition to illegal human organ trafficking. The Bulacan bishop, who is also head of the bioethics committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), admitted that he was at the kidney board’s meeting “when this was decided." “The ethics committee examined their request and we decided based on the(ir) recommendation," he added. In April, the DOH approved the board’s recommendation ordering a ban on kidney transplant for foreign patients unless their donors are related to them by consanguinity. On May 9, members of the DOH National Transplant and Ethics Committee (NTEC) “affirmed" their support for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s policy that there should be no living Filipino kidney donors for foreigners. The decision drew flak from the Department of Social Work and Development whose chief, Secretary Esperanza Cabral said that if the reason is solely altruism, the health officials themselves should provide example and donate their kidneys to the Israeli patients. "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," Cabral said in a statement. "Their good example should influence many others to do the same. That happening, the Department of Health should find it easy to get a host of affluent individuals, along with some people living in abject poverty, to donate their kidneys too. Then we shall have no problem providing kidneys to all Filipinos with renal failure who want a transplant. We may even be able to spare some for foreigners," she added. The board had allowed an Israeli recipient to undergo the knife on May 17 at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City. On Monday, the Philippine Society of Nephrology (PSN) sent a letter to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III protesting the exemption and saying that it may set a precedent for other foreigners to seek immunity from the ban. Dr. Benita Padilla, PNS president, said the board “contradicted" itself when it gave the exemption a month after it announced the kidney transplant prohibition for foreigners. “While a humanitarian concern for the recipients is commendable, this must be matched with a humanitarian concern for the donors also. Did the PBODT make any recommendation also as to how the welfare of the donors will be protected and how it will be ensured that they are not victims of trafficking?" Padilla asked Duque in a letter. Last year, there were 1,046 kidney transplants in the country of which 528 are foreign recipients, according to the Philippine Renal Registry. The rise in foreign patients also coincided with an increase in the number of non-related donors (844), said the same study. Foreigners who come to the Philippines for kidney transplantation are mostly Arabs and Asians, according to the DOH. Between 10,000 to 12,500 Filipinos develop end stage renal disease (ESRD) annually and about 50 to 60 percent of them are kidney transplant candidates. However, less than 10 percent are given transplants because of insufficient supply and the failure of patients to raise money for the procedure. The ban on transplantation for foreigners was recommended by the board in view of reports that many health facilities violate the 10 percent limit for such procedure on non-Filipinos. The World Health Assembly (WHA), to which the Philippines is a member, discourages organ transplant tourism and instead supports cadaver donation to stop illegal human organ trafficking. - GMANews.TV