Letter to the Editor - Donors do die in Kidney Transplantation in India

Friedlaender¹ had reported of patients coming form the West Bank to India for undergoing kidney transplantation from unrelated paid living donors. The Israeli law requires that all living donors must receive written permission from their ministry after assessment by a hospital committee. A national committee also interviews living donors and recipients who are not first-degree relatives. Unrelated living donors are rarely approved and paid organ donation is illegal. However the Rabin Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel has circumvented the law by doing kidney transplantation from unrelated living donors in other countries. These transactions now receive semi-official recognition from the Israeli Ministry of Defence and from health insurance companies, which refunds $40,000 to each such kidney recipient towards costs, which is the cost of kidney transplantation in Israel. Patients who opt for transplantation are offered immediate medical assistance once they return back to Israel. The patients are required to sign agreements of secrecy. The Israeli doctors deny that they do more than accompany patients. This scenario sounds familiar in criminology. The donors are young able to bodied men aged 25-35.