PHILIPPINES: POVERTY DRIVING PEOPLE TO SELL THEIR KIDNEYS

Описание: (26 Aug 1999) Tagalog/Eng/Nat

Poverty in the Philippines has led to a rise in the number of people willing to sell one of their kidneys for money.

In one seaside squatter colony in the capital, Manila, close to 100 men have sold a kidney through a kidney broker.

Reports about syndicates being involved in the procurement of kidneys have prompted hospitals in the Philippines to rethink their policy on accepting kidneys from voluntary donors.

A local medical centre that deals with many kidney transplants is now scrutinising procedures that involve organ donations for local patients from non-related donors.

These five men have something in common.

Apart from sharing a difficult life living in this seaside squatter colony of Bagong Lupa in Manila, these men have scars covering one side of their waists.

They're scars left by an operation to remove one of their kidneys.

Life is hard for the 40-thousand residents of the tiny colony.

Most of the men make a living working as stevedores at the nearby pier, earning at most around 300 pesos a day (seven and a half U-S dollars).

It's barely sufficient for those who are raising families.

So when these men found out they could get a lot of money by donating one of their kidneys, many readily agreed.

SOUNDBITE: (Tagalog)
"Life is very hard here. My house was very small then so I volunteered to have my kidney removed."
SUPER CAPTION: Willie Balagtas, kidney donor

Many share Balagtas' reason for giving up one of their kidneys for a fee.

Demand for donors in the Philippines is high, making good business for so-called kidney brokers.

As a result, donors like those in Bagong Lupa don't deal directly with the potential recipients of their organs.

The middleman in this village is Dalmacio Zeta.

Over the past seven years, Zeta says he's arranged the sale of at least 100 kidneys, mostly from his neighbours in Bagong Lupa.

He gets a commission of 12-thousand pesos (300 U-S dollars) per kidney.

SOUNDBITE: (Tagalog)
"It costs 100-thousand pesos (two and a half thousand U-S dollars). That's the ceiling. Sometimes though, they are offered only 70-thousand pesos (17-hundred and 50 U-S dollars), sometimes 80-thousand pesos (two-thousand U-S dollars) only. My donors bite on the offer because they are gripping the knife's blade (they're desperate)."
SUPER CAPTION: Dalmacio Zeta, Kidney broker

Zeta says all his kidney donors do it voluntarily.

While many believe that selling a kidney is the answer to their poverty-stricken lives, some opt to keep their bodies intact and decide to make ends meet with their meager earnings.

SOUNDBITE: (Tagalog)
"After passing the (medical) check-up, the doctor told us that we will be paid 60-thousand pesos as long as we agree to have our kidney removed. I refused to have it removed because money is not so important to me...what's important is my life because one's life will be destroyed once you removed an organ in your body."
SUPER CAPTION: Jose Abing, Resident who refused to sell kidney

Most of the kidney transplants in the Philippines are being done at the National Kidney Institute and here at the Saint Luke's Medical Centre.

Saint Luke's used to perform about 30 to 40 transplants a year.

But the medical centre has suspended transplants from non-related voluntary donors after reports that syndicates were involved in procuring the organs.

Saint Luke's has also set up an ethics committee which is now scrutinising procedures in processing organ donations for local patients.


SOUNDBITE: (English)







SOUNDBITE: (Tagalog)




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