Hot Spots

Activity related to the organ trade around the world

Also see the photographic essay by Nancy Scheper-Hughes

South Africa

• Medical Tourism
  
  A white South African transplant coordinator attached to a large private hospital criticized the policy that allowed many wealthy foreigners-- especially "ex-colonials" from Botswana and Namibia- to come to South Africa for organs and transplant surgery. "I can't stop them from coming to this hospital," she said, "but I tell them that South African organs belong to South African citizens and that before I see a white person from Namibia getting their hands on a heart of a kidney that belongs to a little black South African child, I myself will see to it that the organ gets tossed into a bucket." (Scheper-Hughes, "Global Trade in Human Organs") Hospital administrators consider especially the ability of foreign patients to pay twice or more what the state or private insurance companies will allow for the surgery. In one academic and public hospital in Cape Town a steady stream of paying foreigners from Mauritius was largely responsible for keeping its beleaguered transplant unit solvent following the budget cuts and the redirection of state funds toward primary care. (Scheper-Hughes, "Global Trade")
  
  
• Body Part Theft at Medical Schools/Police Mortuaries
  
  Corneas, heart valves, and other human tissues were harvested by state pathologists and other mortuary staff and distributed to surgical and medical units, usually without soliciting family members' consent.(Scheper-Hughes "Global Traffic in Human Organs") The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is considering allegations of gross human rights violations at the Sal River Mortuary by the parents and survivors of 17 year-old Andrew Sitshetshe of Guguletu township. Shot in the crossfire of township gang warfare in August of 1992, Andrew's mother found him on the floor with a bleeding chest wound. By the time the ambulance attendants arrived he was dead, and the police had him taken to the Salt River Mortuary. When Andrew's parents returned the next morning, the officials turned them away saying that the body was not yet ready for viewing. When later in the day they were finally allowed to view the boyd, they were shocked. His mother testified, "The blanket covering the body was full of blood, and he had two deep holes on the sides of his forehead so you could easily see the bone. His face was in bad condition. And I could see that something was wrong with his eyes. In fact Andrew's eyes had been removed at the morgue. The director informed Andrew's mother that her son's cornea had been "shaved" and given to two recipients and his eyes were being kept in the refrigerator. The director refused to surrender them to Andrew's mother for burial. (Scheper-Hughes, "Global Traffic")
  
  The director of an experimental research unit in a large public medical school showed an interviewer (Scheper-Hughes) unofficial documents approving the transfer of human heart valves taken (without consent) from the bodies of the poor in the morgue and shipped "for handling costs" to medical centers in Germany and Austria.
  
  
• Allegations of organ theft
  
  On June 8, 1995 Moses Mokgethi was sentenced in the Rand Supreme Court, Gauteng, to life imprisonment for the murder of six children between the ages of four and nine whose bodies were mutilated for hearts, livers, and penises, which Mokgethi claims he sold to a local township businessman for between 2,000 and 3,000 Rands to strengthen his business (Ashforth, Ada, 1996. "Of secrecy and the commonplace: Witchcraft and power in Soweto". Social Research 63 (Winter).
  
  
• Corruption in distribution of organs
  
  Up through the early 1990s about 85% of all heart transplant recipients at Groote Schuur Hospital were white males.
  
  
• Legal
  
  In November of 1997 the Constitutional Court of South Africa decided against a universal right to dialysis and kidney transplant. In the Soobramoney v. Minister of Health case, the court responded to the case of a 41-year-old unemployed man from Durban who was a diabetic with kidney failure. The man had used up his medical insurance and was denied dialysis at public expense at his provincial hosptial following a stroke. The high court upheld the South African Ministry of Health's policy that restricts public support of dialysis to the small population approved for kidney transplant and awaiting the surgery
  
  
• Privatization
  
  In City Park Hopital in Johanesberg a significant proportion of transplant patients are foreigners. (NetCare)
  
  South Africa-- private organ transplantation clinics with amenities like 4 star hotels, foreigners in private hospitals paying cash. Through early 1990s 85% of all heart transplant recipients at Groote Schuur hospital were white males. Human Tissue Act of 1983 requires family consent but NSH research reveals that corneas, heart valves, and other human tissues were harvested by state pathologists attached to morgues still controlled by the police. A loophole in 1983 law allows that the "appropriate " officials can remove needed organs and tissues without consent when 'reasonable" attempts have been made.