Sydney: An Australian doctor proposed on Monday that the government pay up to $47,000 for kidney donations to overcome a chronic shortage.

The suggestion touched off debate around the country on the idea, which critics say will end in the poor selling their organs to the rich. Kidney specialist Gavin Carney said allowing the sale of organs would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in care for patients on transplant waiting lists. He also said it would stop people from buying organs on the black market in developing countries, where they pursue risky, unregulated surgeries.

“We’ve tried everything to drum up support for organ donation and the rates have not risen in 10 years,” Carney was quoted as saying in Fairfax newspapers. “People just don’t seem to be willing to give their organs away for free. ... Let’s pay people some money for a new car or a house deposit and those waiting lists will be halved within about five years.”

Carney’s proposal was immediately criticised by transplant groups, who fear it would exploit poor people. The idea was dismissed by Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who said Australians would not be allowed to market their organs.

“But we do know that we need urgent action in this area of organ donation,” Roxon told Australia Broadcasting Corp. radio. Rather than paying people for organs, Roxon said her ministry would act on some of the recommendations of a federal task force that recently completed a review of the organ donation system. Transplant Australia, a national charity and organ support group, said the average wait for a kidney transplant is four years.

The group’s chief executive Chris Thomas said his organisation rejects paying for organs and is working with the government to change the donation system. He said Carney’s proposal would leave poor people vulnerable. “It really focuses on the poor and people who are least able to pay for things in society. They get attracted to these types of things,” he told ABC Radio. “We’d reject that.”

Carney said the suggestion that paid donation would exploit poor people was “a red herring,” telling ABC radio that government regulation of organ commercialisation would ensure high ethical standards and medical safeguards.

“I don’t support (illegal trade),” Carney said.

“But I also do not agree with the fact that we should let people just rot on dialysis until they have been on dialysis so long they are untransplantable.”

Last week, health officials in the Philippines announced that foreigners will be banned from receiving kidneys for transplant there in an attempt to crack down on a thriving black market in organs sold by poor people.

Source : DNA