Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has waded into the allegation of kidney harvest against Alliance Hospital.
The chairman of NMA in the FCT, Dr. Charles Ugwuanyi, while briefing journalists yesterday in Abuja, urged that relevant authorities should be allowed to handle the issue.
He said the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) has a tribunal that tries doctors on issues related to bad practice and others.
“And we always encourage our patients, if you feel you haven‘t been treated well. Please don‘t choose violence against us, violence can be physical, emotional, cyberbullying, please go to the tribunals. Trust the MDCN as a tribunal, they do a thorough job, and I‘m sure you have been hearing that they disciplined doctors even to the extent of delisting from the registry, stripping of your practicing license. So, we have internal mechanisms to check our practice. Don‘t take laws into your hands,” he urged.
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Reacting to the Saturday, August 19, 2023 publication in a national daily, Ugwuanyi said some publications can be very misleading and one sided. “We want a situation where any potential case is given a balanced judgment by constituted authorities,” he said.
He called on the relevant government authorities and the legislative arm of government to look into the direction while expressing worry that organ harvesting may become a common practice soon if nothing is done.
“So, we can project that in the next few years there will be a lot of organ harvesting. Therefore, we must and we will keep calling on our government to strengthen laws guiding them. Let us see what‘s happening as pointers to bigger problems in the future and that is how the society develops,“ he said.
Responding to the allegation, the managing director of Alliance Hospital, Dr Otabor Christopher, explained that as a rule, kidney recipients source for their donors and present them to the hospital for screening for compatibility and fitness for donation.
He said after the screening, „We proceed to ensure they meet the legal requirements which include: donors must be 18 years or above. Donors must sign consent in the presence of two adult witnesses. Donors are expected to swear an affidavit stating their age, and affirming that the decision to donate is by free will and there is no compulsion or financial inducement,“ he said.
Otabor noted that the law governing organ transplant in Nigeria is scanty and limited in depth, saying that it only requires the donor to be above 18years of age and no financial inducement for the donation.
“We have followed the above protocol strictly for all the kidney transplant cases done by the hospital,“ Otabor said.
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