Cash for kidneys on the nose – patient

by Andrea Elliott

May 13, 2008

A PROPOSAL by a Canberra medico to reward organ donors with $50,000 has raised the ire of a Busselton woman with renal problems.

According to 51 year old kidney patient, Gail Bishop, encouraging people to donate organs for cash is not the way to go. Ms Bishop has suffered kidney dramas most of her life and has been told by doctors she may need a kidney transplant in the coming year.

“I do not support people getting paid to donate organs,” Ms Bishop said. “You can’t give away something you may need in later life and I think what people are forgetting is that the kidney has a function and there is a reason we are born with two.

“In later life you may need that kidney and so the cycle goes.”

In a radical plan to cut waiting times for those needing an organ transplant a proposal to pay cash for a kidney has been suggested by Canberra kidney specialist Gavin Carney. Dr Carney believes waiting times for organs would dramatically decrease if people were rewarded $50,000 for donating a kidney to people in need.

However, Ms Bishop says no amount of money can buy back your health and it will be those who donate on the spur of the moment who will be disadvantaged in the long run.

“Once the kidney is sold, the person takes the money and spends it,” she said. “What happens later in life when they need that kidney and the money is gone,  it is then the health system that pays.

 “People kill to make money and may volunteer things that are not theirs to volunteer. ”

Under Australian law, it is illegal to buy or sell organs. The organ business is rife oversees with a kidney in some countries fetching up to $30,000 on the black market. However, with these organs come the risk of infection and disease.