The Cabinet has expressed its “outrage” at the human kidney transplant scandal uncovered at a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal.
During its regular Wednesday meeting, the Cabinet welcomed the court decision to impose fines against Netcare KwaZulu-Natal for the unlawful surgeries whereby human kidneys were illegally acquired and transplanted at one of the company’s hospitals, government spokesperson Themba Maseko told a media briefing on Thursday.
“Cabinet is outraged by the conduct of both the hospital and the doctors who are implicated in the scam,” he said.
The government would not allow the country to become a haven for syndicates who traffic in human parts.
This case also raised serious trust and ethical issues regarding the doctors who were implicated.
“The Cabinet hopes and expects that the health professions body will also act against the individual doctors who are implicated in the ‘ritual’.”
The government hoped that the Netcare group and the private healthcare industry would take all the necessary steps to ensure that this inhumane conduct never happened again.
“The law enforcement agencies must do all they can to ensure that all those who are implicated in the scam face the full might of the law,” Maseko said.
Asked whether the government’s policy of not providing dialysis to anyone over the age of 50 had created a market for trafficking in human kidneys, he said this had not been discussed.
The meeting had focused on the practice of buying kidneys and other body parts from poor citizens of other countries brought to South Africa, and rich citizens from other countries invited to come to this country for these operations to be conducted.
“The Cabinet found that practice to be totally unacceptable and illegal, and that is why we are coming out very strongly in support of the court decision,” Maseko said.
Ongoing investigation
On how widespread it was, he said the investigation was ongoing, with the probe into the Netcare case having started as early as 2002.
This had given an insight into how the syndicates operated.
The investigations were continuing and it was thus difficult to say how widespread the practice was.
“But it’s something we are slowly getting on top of to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
“It was a syndicate that was operating underground. You’re talking about very wealthy citizens from other parts of the world.
“You’re talking about professionals, medical doctors, who often do not communicate the details of their surgeries, of operations they are conducting in hospitals.
“So it took quite a bit of investigations to actually uncover this practice.
“We are confident we will get to the bottom of this and all those responsible [and] will actually uproot it.
“We find it totally unacceptable that in our own backyard professionals could get involved in such a scam of trading or trafficking in human parts,” he said.
Asked whether more stringent control and regulation could now be expected, Maseko said every profession in the country had its own ethical code and members were generally expected to comply with that code.
It was very clear that these doctors had not just broken the code, but also broken the law.
The professional body was expected to take the necessary steps, even if it meant deregistering the professionals concerned.
“Those are options that they need to consider. But at this particular point in time, we would like to see the profession itself taking action.”
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had, at this stage, not indicated any intention to change the regulations.
“But, I’m sure that over the next few weeks, it’s something that he may want to express an opinion on,” Maseko said. — Sapa