It’s a cash cow for hospitals in China, and inviting plenty of controversy:
Doctors and human-rights groups around the world have decried China’s practice of harvesting organs from prisoners condemned to death. Concerned that lucrative foreign transplants create an incentive for China to execute more prisoners, critics in Israel are pushing for legislative restrictions. Last week, in part due to what it called the growing problem of transplant tourism, the World Health Organization proposed that countries around the world establish common practices on organ transplants.Foreign transplant patients have become a cash cow for China’s hospitals, which are desperate for funds after a collapse of state funding for medical care. China’s medical sector is chaotic and loosely regulated, and many foreigners can pay far more than Chinese citizens can for organ transplants. The money at stake is so great that doctors and others involved in the transplant industry say transplant tourism will be hard to stamp out.
Related posts:
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- The human head transplant
- Will medical tourism drive domestic doctors out of business?
- Steve Jobs received a new liver, and the ethics surrounding his transplant
- My take: Ted Kennedy, media appearances, organ donation
- Texting young liver transplant patients to take their medications
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Please check this site out for the most uptodate independent investigations into organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. Co authored by a former Canadian cabinet minister state secretary for Asia Pacific Mr David Kilgour and internationally renowned
Human rights Lawyer David Matas.
http://investigation.go.saveinter.net/
One can see why the domestic providers are upset with the Chinese transplant market. The answer is simply competition and over the long haul it will mean a loss of $$$.
The Chinese should tell the West to mind its own business and clean up the market…hmmm… perhaps that is part of the problem… the lack of a market here thanks to an overburdensome government that would rather hand out trinkets to people than let people sell or give what is their sole property to sell or give as they please.
Well Anonymous the problem being that
in China those who have their organs sold have not given their consent . Other than the 2 percent that have died in road deaths or other accidents the rest of the 98% were taken forcefully without consent and in order for the organ to be in prime working order the consenting forced donor would have still been alive not brain dead.
This is rule under the Ccp a murderous vile evil regime who has no regard for human life just profits .
Although I agree that the use of prisoners as non-consentual donors is unethical I do not feel that the practice itself for consentual adults is an issue.
It’s true that perhaps with more resources will be the ones to have better and faster access to transplant donors, that’s simply the nature of the world we live in. If a donor is willing to take the risk then why shouldn’t they be able to sell to the highest bidder? Who is to say that is unethical when the two parties are consentual?
The better approach is to establish standards of practice and quality to ensure the practice is safe (as possible) for all parties involved.
Just a quick follow-up to my 12:57 post. It appears the HCA has opened its first international hospital in Pakistan. So, now we’re going to see where it’s an acceptable practice to travel to a foreign country for procedures because the provider hospital is going to be able to do so at less cost. Insurance companies will increasingly adopt payments for these because they are in ‘approved’ providers. If I were a doctor in the US I’d be very cautious on my opinion on this matter. There may come a day when you’re going to have to use an online auction to ‘win’ your customer’s business instead of it being shipped overseas to an international provider network.
There are ways to remain competitive but US doctors are going to have to start thinking outside the box. If you’ll post your email or provide an email link we can discuss this in further detail.
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