UK NEWS

OUTRAGE OVER KIDNEY SWAP FOR PLO ENVOY

Outrage has been sparked over the transplant

Tuesday November 10,2009

By Victoria Fletcher

AN NHS hospital has sparked outrage for performing an organ transplant on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s ambassador to Zimbabwe.

Despite a dearth of organs for NHS patients, meaning thousands are on the transplant waiting list, St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust in London has given a kidney to a high-profile member of the Middle Eastern political and paramilitary organisation.

The news will cause anger among the 7,000 patients currently waiting for a kidney in the UK because of a shortage of organs.

And there are fears it will damage confidence in the transplant scheme, which is trying to encourage more people to sign up as donors.

Stephen O’Brien, shadow health minister, said: “Patients who have waited for years for an organ will be extremely worried to hear that so many are going to patients abroad.”

More than 700 transplants, mostly liver swaps, have been carried out on non-UK patients, 631 of which received organs from dead donors. Of those, 314 patients were from outside the EU.

Many have paid the NHS hospitals that carry out the operation despite the fact the hospital will have received the organs for free.

The revelations caused such anger that the Department of Health ordered an immediate review of the system and has pledged to ban private transplants from dead donors.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the PLO ambassador to Zimbabwe received a kidney from a living donor in 1998.

The trust has refused to say whether the operation was carried out privately or on the NHS and would not say if the donor was British.

Figures obtained by the Conservatives show that British organs are being given to patients from all round the world.