The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Kidney racket busted in A.P.

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Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Kidney racket busted in A.P.

Staff Reporter

Two transplantations performed in Chennai

Five persons held; donors projected
as relatives
Suspicion on eight corporate hospitals

HYDERABAD: An inter-State kidney transplantation racket, involving exchange of lakhs of rupees, was busted with the arrest of five persons by city police on Monday.

Investigation was on to ascertain the role of eight city corporate hospitals, where the accused got kidneys transplanted for 23 persons while falsely claiming the donors as their relatives and family members of recipients, Commissioner’s Task Force DCP V.B. Kamalasan Reddy told a press conference.

The donors were mostly from Khammam, West Godavari and Ranga Reddy districts. As per the A.P. Transplantations of Human Organs Act, an Authorisation Committee comprising the Director of Medical Education (DME) as its chairman should authorise donation of kidneys by persons other than family members of recipients.

Members of the gang used to go around hospitals identifying patients undergoing dialysis for renal failure. They would offer to arrange kidney donors and “take care of all documentation.”

Fake documents

They would create fake documents projecting donors as distant relatives of recipients with no commercial interest and present the same to the Authorisation Committee.

They secured permissions for 14 persons in this manner. With the committee strictly scrutinising applications, the accused persons began claiming donors as even blood relatives of the recipients since its permission was not required in such cases. Under the second category, applications would be accepted at hospital level but the donors were sent for the test of Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA) to determine compatibility and linkage with the patient. If the HLA test report was negative, the accused used to scan the report copy, edit it suitably in the computer and present it in the hospital. Two of the kidney transplantations were performed in Chennai.

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