The cry of the Philippine Medical Association must have fallen on deaf ears. No single soul seems to be listening. Consequently, scores of kidney patients waiting for kidneys from donors will have to wait. It has become a waiting game that involves life and death.
What if no kidney can be made available? What if there is not going to be a donor? How many more deaths will add to the 32 patients who have died since 2007 due to utter lack of donors? What will happen to some 570 patients diagnosed for end stage renal disease (ESRD) who are wait-listed at the medical facility called National Kidney and Transplant Institute?
There was ban. The Department of Health itself raised the Sword of Damocles over the donor’s head such that no one and no one shall donate to patient in need of kidney especially so where both, donor and donee, are non-related.
There must have really been a scheme of things whereby donating organs like kidneys have become a profitable cottage industry and the poor are its main provider. Yes, there had been that – “kidneys for sale” – at P150,000 per donor plus free medical or hospital attention.
The same scheme may be Pareto efficient, come to think of it. It helped not just Filipino kidney patients, but even foreigners who were found to have availed of kidneys as ‘merchandise’ in the open market. All of a sudden, the past government messed up with this prevailing ‘law of supply and demand’. It cut supply, it did not soothe the resulting problem in the demand side. Either way, there were “deadweight losses” on the part of the suppliers as it is on the part of the consumers, in this case, the kidney patients.
Who isn’t willing to pay for a price to save one’s dear life, altruistically speaking? No one, of course – not one.
The unthinking health department even portrayed the donors under the scheme as victims. Some quarters tend to think in terms of ‘organ trafficking’ as though donating, under even the most understandable terms, is immoral, illegal, or violative of health care. Mr. Health Secretary, what is health care?
Until this DOH lifts this unstudied ban on kidney donations by non-related donors, it killed as it continue to kill suffering but otherwise expectant donees let alone the donors too who are willing enough to ‘trade’ their kidneys for some sums of money.
DOH can continue to portray donors as victims as it actually make kidney patients waiting for kidneys from donors real-to-life victims – all because of the health department’s unthinking and unstudied policy.
Who is next to die waiting for kidney to come around? People are gifts to people. That is what the poor donors are. It is still a clear act of selflessness no matter how one foolish bureaucrat looks at it. The health secretary should be made to explain why he or his organization does not promote life.
The irreverent Mr. Health Secretary has just refused to practice the Hippocratic Oath, in one sense or other. And it is a pity.