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SINGAPORE : ParkwayHealth, which runs Mount Elizabeth Hospital, has confirmed that its policies and procedures are in complete compliance with the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA), following a review.
Investigations into the first two organ trading cases are still ongoing at Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Waiting for a kidney from a deceased donor in Singapore can take as long as eight years, so to shorten to wait, some renal patients turn to live donors.
The ethics committee at Mount Elizabeth Hospital is made up of three persons as required under the HOTA. It comprises a doctor with an active practice at the hospital, a second doctor who is completely independent of the hospital, and a lay person.
All candidates are drawn from a panel of Health Ministry-approved doctors and lay persons.
As required under the Act, the curriculum vitae of every person on this panel is submitted to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and approved by the Director of Medical Services before they can serve as a Transplant Ethics Committee member.
According to ParkwayHealth, the ethics committee interviews the potential donor and where the clinical condition permits, the potential recipient, separately.
Dr Lam Pin Min, Member of the Government Parliamentary Commitee for Health, said there could have been procedural deficiencies within the ethics committee at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where the two organ trading cases were uncovered.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia at the sidelines of a community event, Dr Lam said the incident serves as a timely reminder for the Mount Elizabeth Hospital to tighten its ethics committee procedures.
He said there should be more stringent checks to ensure the information supplied by the organ donor and recipient is true and authentic.
However, Dr Lam added that such checks should be a multi-party effort, and this should include the physician attending to the patient.
"I think the doctors also have a part to play as well, to make sure that the information given to him is authentic. If he finds that there's something suspicious, he should raise it to the ethics committee," said Dr Lam.
Over at the National University Hospital (NUH), live transplants have only been performed on Singaporean and Permanent Resident patients. 100 such transplants have been performed since 1986 - a quarter of them between spouses. The rest were kidney donations by siblings, parents, and other relatives.
Professor A Vathsala, director of the Adult Renal Transplant Programme at NUH, said: "Organ trading is against human dignity. Human body parts should not be sold - it's not a commodity and it should not be commercialised.
"So in that context, we always advocate for altruistic donation from the patients' loved ones, who want to donate to someone they love and care for, because they know they are prolonging the life of that individual.
"We are concerned that people do go overseas (to seek organ transplants), but it's because they don't want to wait for a deceased donor transplant, or don't have anyone in the family that can give it to them."
Professor Vathsala said she has turned away donors and recipients in the past, due to the lack of confidence in the relationship between them. - CNA /ls
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