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Kidney patients at Hanoi's Bach Mai hospital (photo: Dan Tri)
Vernacular newspapers have reported that two young men were recently handing out leaflets at the gate of the Army Hospital 108 in Hanoi, each offering one of his kidneys for 50 million dong ($4500). This news has attracted attention to the underground trade in internal organs, particularly kidneys.
VnExpress reported that the two men who advertised to sell their kidneys were from nearby Hai Duong province. First they tried to sell their kidneys to hospitals to raise money to pay their parents’ debts. The hospitals turned them away because what they proposed is illegal. Resolved to find a buyer, the men turned to handing out leaflets.
This may be the first case of its type in Vietnam. However, there are many online offers to buy and sell kidneys on the Internet and there is also a “real market” for kidneys, as reporters from VnExpress, Dan Tri and Tuoi Tre newspapers have found out.
“I’m 24 and very healthy. My blood type is O+. I want to donate a kidney. Please contact me by email, vodanh.. @yahoo.com for details” read an advertisement on raovat.com, Vietnam’s clone of EBay.
The kidney seller told reporters that he is a student who had to quit school because he didn’t have money to pay school fees. He is in debt.
“My life is at a standstill. I know that it (selling a kidney) is not good for my health but I have made my decision. I wish to deal directly with the patient who needs my kidney because I don’t want to enrich go-betweens,” he wrote.
Many people posted their mobile phone numbers. This kind of ad is often short, like: “I need to sell a kidney at the price of 50 million dong, blood type B-, 21 years old, healthy. Contact: 0916…).
Tuoi Tre answered an online ad to make contact with a pharmaceutical company employee in HCM City named L, who said he could put people in touch with would-be kidney sellers.
“I hunted for a kidney for my nephew on the Internet. First I met a man in District 4 (HCM City) but he looked like a drug addict so I didn’t dare deal with him. Later I met two students, a male and a female from Can Tho University but my uncle couldn’t afford their price; they asked for a hundred million dong. I still have their phone numbers. If you like, I will give them to you,” this man told the Tuoi Tre reporters.
With L’s information, Tuoi Tre contacted ‘M’ from Can Tho University by phone. M said that he recently had to stop studying because his family couldn’t support his studies anymore. He is the third child of a farmer family in Kien Giang, a lower Delta province.
“My family is deep in debt so I decided to sell one of my kidneys for 100-120 million dong to save my family,” he said. The student said he is not worried for his health because he have done some research. He knows that a person has two kidneys but can live with only one kidney.
‘L’ commented that “M’s circumstance is very pitiful. If you buy his kidney, you should be responsible for his health in the future. If you decide to buy his kidney, we can see each other to make a written commitment on kidney donation and health assistance for him. I’m willing to be the third party to guarantee the commitment”.
VnExpress also discovered online kidney selling advertisements. A man in HCM City posted this ad: “Need to buy a kidney to save a man, at high price. My brother is now in the last stage of kidney failure. Anybody who wants to sell me a kidney please call 094…. My brother’s blood type is B.”
VNExpress called this man and he told the reporter that his brother had been saved, thanks to the advertisement. He said many people had called him offering their kidneys at from 20 to 70 million dong. To make it ‘legal,’ I “just went to the hospital to get a verification of kidney donation,” the man told VNExpress.
Tuoi Tre reporters mixed with the crowds outside two HCMC hospitals, People’s Hospital 115 and Cho Ray Hospital, to investigate. Some motorbike taxi drivers at People’s Hospital 115 recommended two kidney “brokers” named K and D.
They found D at the gate of the People’s Hospital 115. D told a Tuoi Tre reporter to give him his phone number, promising to call later if he found a seller. D said that a kidney might cost up to 300 million dong.
Tuoi Tre also learned that two men named V and N are notorious among kidney brokers. N is a taxi driver near the People’s Hospital 115. He has a list of poor people who regularly sell their blood. When N has a buyer for a kidney, he will persuade a blood seller to sell their kidney. N buys a kidney for 50-60 million dong then sells the organ to a recipient for over 300 million dong.
What do doctors say?
Tuoi Tre's reporter met with a 'kidney broker' named D (on motorbike) at the gate of the People’s Hospital 115 in HCM City (Photo: Tuoi Tre)
Dr. Nguyen Cao Luan, a nephrologist (kidney specialist) at Hanoi’s Bach Mai Hospital, says that kidney selling advertisements are very common. Many young people approach his staff to offer their kidneys. They are turned away with the explanation that organ sales are illegal.
Dr. Luan says that most of the kidneys used in transplant operations in Vietnam are donated by the patients’ relatives. Some patients purchase kidneys and go to China for operations. They can also declare the kidney sellers to be their relatives to make the affairs ‘legal.’ Luan notes that if hospitals carefully verify transplant cases and refuse to operate on suspect cases, the kidney trade will be prevented.
“It is a fact that many people dodge the law to sell their kidneys,” Luan explained. “According to regulations, kidney donors have to submit their ID card, etc. but this procedure is not followed in some hospitals. Doctors always want to save their patients. If the kidneys are suitable, they rationalize the decision to transplant them.”
Dr. Luan considers it normal that people offer to sell their kidneys because the need for the organs is acute and it is not a bad thing to sell kidneys. He also said that it will be good for both kidney sellers and buyers if there were both a law regulating kidney selling and a kidney bank in Vietnam.
Doctor Ta Phuong Dung from People’s Hospital 115 says that to cope with “disguised” kidney donation, the hospital asks for written confirmation of kidney donation by the local government where the would-be donor and intended recipient live if they are not relatives. Hospital 115 has carried out 33 kidney transplant operations so far.
“This provides legal protection for the surgeons in case accidents happen to the kidney donors,” Dung explains.
Dr. Tran Ngoc Sinh of Cho Ray hospital says that it is very difficult for someone to donate their kidney to a stranger. “We only perform kidney transplant operations after carefully verifying that the donations are completely voluntary,” he adds.
According to Sinh, his hospital has performed over 180 kidney transplants. In only two cases were the donor and recipient not blood relatives. In one case, a husband donated his kidney to his wife and in the other case, a Buddhist nun donated her kidney to her disciple.
Nguyen Huy Quang, deputy director of the Ministry of Health’s Legal Department, confirmed that it is illegal to sell and purchase kidneys. Of over 300 kidney transplant operations have been carried out in Vietnam so far, Quang said, all kidney donors were relatives of the recipients."
