Kidney sale racket thrives in Vizag

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, June 18, 2014: Tuesday’s arrest of medical director of Seven Hills Hospital Dr N Prabhakar Babu by Odisha police in connection with a case related to illegal kidney sale racket has come as a jolt to the local medical fraternity and also unmasked the ugly face of such renal transplantations in the city which is going on unabatedly since sometime in a clandestine manner. 

The kidney racket incident came to light in the second week of May in Cuttack area of Odisha when Namita Nayak of Cuttack, who donated her kidney to one Mohan Chandra Lenka of Bhubaneswar, lodged a police complaint against few people at Mangalabag station citing that she was lured into the surgery and was duped.

Odisha and Vizag police said that a local mediator Sharmistha Nayak along with her husband Dileep Nayak lured Namita into the kidney sale promising Rs10 lakh and post surgery that took place in Seven Hills Hospital in Vizag. However she was paid only Rs 2 lakh. Police also said that the entire deal was worked out by one Biswaranjan Khatua another middleman for Rs 25 to 30 lakhs.

There are more than a dozen super speciality corporate hospitals in Vizag and around 6 of those are actively involved and better equipped with facilities and specialists to do renal transplantations for those who are in need.

And most of these patients at the hospitals are either from Odisha or Chattisgarh. These corporate hospitals also do aggressive campaigning in those neighbouring states attracting patients to their respective hospitals offering world-class treatment with affordable financial packages.

On record these hospitals claim to do 3 to 4 such transplantations each in a month and it was done without much scrutiny or verification of the applications. But inquiries by this newspaper revealed that at least 40 to 50 such kidney transplantations take place in a month in the city in all such hospitals put together involving handsome figures in lakhs being shared by many middle men.

“While most of the hospitals strictly adhere to the set norms of the organ transplantation Act guidelines no doubt there are certainly some black sheep. A new system with background check of the donors and acceptors has to be evolved to put an end to such illegal activities,” said, top executive of a famous corporaete hospital chain in the country, who wished not to be named.