Should sale of organs be allowed?
Doctors and MPs give their take on organ transactions
By Shuli Sudderuddin
Organ selling should be allowed in a properly controlled system, and in fact this is long overdue, Associate Professor Lee Wei Ling, director of the National Neuroscience Institute, said yesterday.
'People are dying of organ failure. And there are people who are healthy enough to donate their organs. It is ironical that the law at present punishes the very victims it is supposed to protect,' she said.
She made this call when asked for her views on the first-ever kidneys-for-sale case, which came up in court last Friday.
Dr Lee has been championing organ selling since last year when she wrote in to The Straits Times Forum page.
She said yesterday that in Singapore, it is possible to ensure the donor is healthy enough to donate his organ without adverse medical consequences, and there is fair remuneration. Checks can be made to ensure the donor does not carry any diseases that can be transmitted to the patient through the transplanted organ.
'In other countries, the donors are at a disadvantage without knowing it, and can get exploited. Singapore is the one place that can ensure that the donor is taken care of.
'We should be proud of it. There are existing rules and regulations that are outdated and irrelevant to the current situation in Singapore. We should set out to change them and do what is right.
'Every one of us has a duty as human beings to help others. People who may potentially be saved are dying, yet we still bury our heads in the sand and allow the suffering to go on? Of course, we should not break the law. But we should change the laws when they have become irrelevant. We should ensure that the person who is selling his organs is protected, and eliminate the middleman.'
She noted the existing market for organs mediated by a middleman.
'We should set up a proper, competent system to ensure the safety of the donor and that the donor receives a fair sum of the money in exchange for his organ.'
Echoing her sentiments was Dr Lee Keen Whye, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gleneagles Medical Centre.
'As long as there is a willing buyer and seller, why not? If the seller does not feel exploited, who are we to judge? It's more important to save lives first,' he said.
Other doctors and MPs interviewed, however, disagreed. Dr Pwee Hock Swee, renal medicine specialist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, felt that organ transactions should be purely altruistic.
Dr Lily Neo, an MP for Jalan Besar GRC, said that kidney transplants are 'a big life- and-death operation and people should not be induced to part with a part of themselves for a financial reward'.
Dr Fatimah Lateef, an MP for Marine Parade GRC, feels that it is more important to raise the number of donors available. A price tag should not be put on human organs.
Ms Halimah Yacob, head of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Health, was also not in favour of organ trading 'because the poor and the weak will be the ones who have to give up their organs and this will lead to them being intimidated and harassed'.
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