CHANGES to the Human Organ Transplant Act (Hota), expected early next year, will include compensation to those who donate their kidneys to save the lives of people they do not know.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said this yesterday when he sought to refine the ethical debate over organ trading to placate those who are against money changing hands for body parts.

Ethicists are against commercialisation, he noted, but even ethicists in the United States with its 'highly ethical framework' think that altruistic donors should be reimbursed.

The reimbursement amounts have not been determined but are likely to amount to tens of thousands of dollars. According to Mr Khaw, the amount has to be enough to help a donor cover the additional medical costs incurred after donating an organ, like follow-up checkups.

Another consideration for the changes to Hota is to ensure that donors are fully informed of the risks of giving away an organ.

-Straits Times, AsiaOne

Global ideas to cut organ wait list in Singapore

HEALTH Minister Khaw Boon Wan wants Singapore to follow Spain and Norway, two countries which boast very short wait lists for kidney transplants.

Spain has one of the highest cadaveric kidney transplants in the world, with no age restriction on donors. Both kidneys from older donors are given to one recipient, who is usually an elderly person too. When a patient needs a transplant in Norway, the whole family turns up at the hospital to donate. This gives the patient a high chance of a good match.

In the US, poor donors can get up to US$6,000 (S$8,500) for travel, subsistence and related expenses. Some states allow tax deductions of up to US$10,000 for travel, lodging and lost income. The Istanbul Declaration signed by over 150 government, medical and ethical representatives from 78 countries in May, lists what donors can ethically be reimbursed for.

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Poor Donors exploited outrageously

ONE kidney donor who was promised 180,000 pesos (S$5,500) got only 120,000 pesos in the end. The dealer who had made the promise was nowhere to be found after the donor gave up his kidney last year. The predicament of this donor was typical of many others who had been short-changed after donating a kidney, said yesterday.

On the sidelines of a World Health Organisation meeting last week in the Philippine capital Manila, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan met eight kidney donors from the village of Baseco, Manila.

Donors he met told him: 'The dealers sweet-talked us into parting with kidneys, they had no risk and pocketed the bulk of the money.'

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Compensate donors? Not all favour the idea

Madam Halimah Yacob, head of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health, felt it was too similar to organ trading for comfort.

'The line between reimbursement and sale of a kidney is very thin,' she said, arguing that the moral hazard remains. 'Donors will still be the poor. And you won't be able to completely eradicate under- the-table transactions.'

The Singapore Medical Association is also against organ trading, which is when an organ is priced by market forces, said its president, Dr Wong Chiang Yin. 'Whatever the case, the Ministry of Health will have to play a central and active role because only the Government has the mandate of the people to decide on such matters,' he added.

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