Outrage as NHS Donor Organs Sold at Profit to Foreigners
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given to foreign patients who have paid about £75,000 each for private
transplant operations in the past two years, freedom of information
documents show.
The liver transplants took place at NHS hospitals, despite severe
shortages that mean many British patients die while waiting for an
organ that could save their lives.
The documents disclose that 40 patients from Greece and Cyprus
received liver transplants in the UK paid for by their governments.
Donated livers were also given to people from non-European Union
countries including Libya, the United Arab Emirates, China and Israel.
The surgeons who carry out the transplants receive a share of the
operation fee — believed to be about £20,000 — as all the work is done
privately in NHS hospitals.
It comes as a record 8,000 Britons are on NHS lists waiting for
transplant organs. About 260 British patients are waiting for a liver.
Jane Dodd, whose nine-year-old daughter Rebecca died while waiting for
a liver transplant, said she was shocked and upset to hear that organs
from British donors have been given to overseas patients.
Dodd, a part-time bank clerk from Wirral, who also has a 19-year-old
son, Matthew, whose life was saved by a liver transplant, said: “I do
feel that organs donated in this country should go to people from this
country unless there isn’t a suitable recipient.
“If you are signing a donor card in this country you expect someone
from this country to get the organ.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article5439761.ece