A dying lifeline

It took the death of a kidney donor to expose Punjab8217;s dark trade. Two years ago Suresh Kumar, a patient at Amritsar8217;s Kakkar hosp...

It took the death of a kidney donor to expose Punjab8217;s dark trade. Two years ago Suresh Kumar, a patient at Amritsar8217;s Kakkar hospital, died three months after he had donated his kidney.

His family accused the doctors of 8216;8216;wilful negligence8217;8217; and registered a complaint against them with the police. While investigating the case, Amritsar SSP Kanwar Vijay Pratap Singh discovered a well-oiled organ transplant racket that stretched across states. Doctors were found to be routinely flouting the regulations that governed transplants.

Following Kumar8217;s death, Dr Praveen Sarin, the surgeon at the Kakkar hospital as well as the manager Hardya Mehta, and four other doctors were arrested on charges of murder. At present, they are all out on bail.

The defence counsels filed a Criminal Revision Petition, which is pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice, BK Roy. The defence counsels are pleading that the murder charges on Sarin and others do not substantiate. Instead, they argue the maximum that the doctors can be booked for is culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

SARIN and the other doctors, meanwhile, are battling another case in the High Court in Chandigarh. This one under the Human Organ Transplant Act. According to the Act, a person can only receive an organ from a blood relation. At the time of his arrest, Sarin was also the chairman of the Authorisation Committee in Punjab. The police alleged that he used to clear many transplants where the donor was no relation of the recipient. It was common in Punjab to lure needy donors from Bihar and make them pose as relatives or close friends. A donor was paid anything between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh.

AS a fallout of the case, doctors have become very strict while dealing with transplant cases. In the past year-and-a-half, the Authorisation Committee in Amritsar and Patiala has rejected about 150 cases of kidney transplant as the donors were not any 8216;8216;blood relations8217;8217; of the recipients.

	CASE FILE
	Blood bond 8226; All accused, Sarin, four other doctors and the hospital manager are out on bail 8226; There are two cases against the accused: one on murder charge and another under the Human Organ Transplant Act 8226; According to the Transplant Act, the donor and the recipient have to be related

Despite repeated appeals by patients to the State Medical and Research Department, kidney patients are finding it tough to get their transplant applications approved.

The Punjab Nephrology Society too apparently adopted a resolution at a meeting last year, reiterating that doctors would not undertake kidney transplants if the donors and recipient were not related.