Transplanting problems
Even as Southasians watched in disbelief the crossborder chase of Amit Kumar, the disgraced transplant doctor, as he fled from his Gurgaon office to the Chitwan jungles of southern Nepal (and, allegedly, planned to move on surreptitiously to Canada), the people of Pakistan have breathed something of a collective sigh of relief. It is a sigh that still holds some trepidation, however. After decades of deliberation, and having long been a centre of illegal transplants of kidneys and other organs, in late 2007 Pakistani legislators won wide approval for finally promulgating a law regulating the transplants of human organs and tissues. The "Transplantation of Human Organs and Human Tissue Ordinance" now prescribes punishments of up to 10 years imprisonment and fines of PKR 1 million (USD 15,900) for those dealing 'unlawfully' in organs, and those who remove these organs without the victim's consent.
Perhaps most importantly, the new ordinance explicitly bans the 'donation' of organs to foreigners, clearly the most well-to-do of clients throughout the region. At Dr Kumar's Gurgaon office, for instance, a kidney transplant used to cost up to USD 2500; when he was arrested by Nepali security forces, the doctor was found with packets of money worth about USD 150,000. For transplant services in Pakistan, foreign clients generally came from the US, Europe and West Asia, thronging the country largely due to lax or non-existent regulatory control. (Pakistan and Bangladesh had long been the only two countries in Asia without any organ-transplant legislation.) Arab patients to Pakistan generally numbered the highest, partially due to the wealth on the peninsula, and partially due to the fact that the Islamabad government had given them special treatment as 'close friends' of the state.