Sydney (PTI): An Australian kidney specialist is facing criticism for his proposal to legalise organ sales to save patients from dangers involved in buying body parts from black markets in third world countries. Canberra nephrologist Gavin Carney has said the country's donation crisis could be solved by allowing payment for transplants, a report of the Australian Broadcasting Corp said.

He said it would prevent sick patients from waiting years for transplants and stop them from travelling to Third World countries like Pakistan and India to buy organs but the move has been condemned by Transplant Australia (TA). Organ trade in Australia is illegal and carries penalty of six months jail or fines of over USD 4,000. Dr Carney told Fairfax newspapers that young, fit and healthy people should be allowed to sell their kidneys for up to USD 50,000.

"Australians should be dissuaded from going to Third World countries to buy kidneys because such countries do not have the ethical, moral or compensatory infrastructure to make such a practise workable and appropriate," he said. "But we can do the opposite here. Let's pay people some money for a new car or a house deposit and those waiting lists will be halved within about five years," he said.

Australian kidney transplant patients currently wait for up to 10 years for a healthy organ, with more than 1,800 people on the list while only 343 kidneys were donated last year, costing health services billions of dollars.