15 July 2011 Source: Tanjug
Bucharest – An investigation by the Romanian daily “Adevaruk” has discovered a ring of illegal trafficking in human organs. The price of a kidney is EUR 15,000 and of a lung EUR 40,000.
The newspapers have come to shocking findings when two journalists negotiated at the black market the purchase of human organs for ill aunt.
The research has shown that illegal trade in human organs is still possible in Romania, in spite of the fact that this country regulated the issue of transplantation in accordance with the EU rules in 2006 and that it is a criminal offence under the threat of prison sentence.
According to this daily, in the largest Romanian transplantation center, Fundemi hospital in Bucharest, potential donors wait in the hospitals for interested “buyers”, which the staff tolerates.
Persons who are ready to sell their organs are mostly Roma, while the price of one kidney ranges between EUR 10,000 and 15,000 and for half a liver around EUR 13,000.
The daily reports that the journalists have obtained these data by responding to an ad placed by a 39-year old man who wanted to sell his kidney and one lung. They agreed on the price of EUR 15,000 for a kidney and EUR 40,000 for a lung. The man who was selling the organs wanted to use the money to cure the jaw injury he sustained in an accident and to build an extra room for his family of 6.
“Adevarul” reports that the costs of bribery for the medical staff that would perform the surgery should be added to the price of the organ, as well as the legal medical costs. They add that doctors and nurses keep the records of sold organs.
A 34-old man said that he had sold his right kidney a year earlier for EUR 14,550 and now he is offering his wife’s and brother’s organs.
In order to get around legal waiting list for organs, a person who obtained the organ in such a way, according to “Adevarul”, paid the bribery of “EUR 500 for the Professor, EUR 200 to the anesthesiologist and EUR 100 to the nurses” at the Bucharest transplantation center last year.
Ioanel Sinesku, director of the Fundemi Kidney Transplantation center has rejected these accusations, saying that this is not possible and that the person caught in illegal organ trade should be prosecuted.