Transplants involving living donors are allowed here only if the organ is given freely and no money changes hands. Each transplant will have to be approved by a three-member hospital ethics committee.

Made up of doctors and laymen, the committee can ask for medical and non-medical information to satisfy itself that the donor:

• is who he claims to be and is of sound mind;

• knows the risks involved and is not being forced in any way; and

• will not receive any payment for the organ.

Although Mount Elizabeth Hospital's ethics committee - whose members are drawn from a pool of people approved by MOH - has rejected applications in the past, it approved the two cases now before the courts.

The first case involved an Indonesian donor and recipient. That transplant took place here in March this year.

In the second case, an Indonesian donor had agreed to sell his kidney to Singaporean retail magnate Tang Wee Sung.

The hospital's ethics committee spent an hour and a half interviewing both donor and recipient, before it was satisfied that there was sufficient reason for an altruistic donation.

The committee was presented a detailed family tree to establish that the pair were related and that they had known each other for years.

Panel members also reviewed the risks involved with the donor to ensure that he understood what he was getting himself into.

The operation did not go ahead, as hours after the approval was given, MOH officials and the police stepped in and seized its documents for closer scrutiny.

Since then, the hospital has approved one other transplant, according to officials there.

A check with the public hospitals found that NUH's ethics committee has not rejected a single application for a living-donor transplant, but over at SGH, several applications had been turned down in the past.

There are 563 people here whose kidneys no longer work and who are waiting for a transplant. But the wait is long, averaging nine years, and often futile.

A transplant is far superior to dialysis, giving the recipient a much better chance at living a normal life.

This has led several hundred Singaporeans to seek transplants overseas - primarily in China and India.

Some have returned with blood-borne diseases like Aids and hepatitis, but the majority do well.

salma@sph.com.sg