Article - May 16, 2008 - World Socialist Web Site

Australia: $50,000 for a kidney? Doctor’s proposal highlights desperate health, social crisis

By Laura Tiernan

An Australian doctor provoked a public outcry last week with a proposal that healthy young people be offered $50,000 for one of their kidneys. Dr Gavin Carney, a nephrologist at Canberra Hospital, said cash payment for organs was needed to address an urgent shortage of donors.

“We’ve tried everything to drum up support for organ donation and the rates have not risen in 10 years” Carney told the Sydney Morning Herald. “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 in about five years.”

Carney’s comments highlight the dire situation facing thousands of people with kidney failure. Perhaps inadvertently, his proposal also pointed to the climate of increasing financial hardship. An online poll conducted by the Herald, Sydney’s largest circulation daily broadsheet, found 33 percent of respondents would sell a kidney for Carney’s asking price.

After the cash-for-kidney proposal appeared on the Herald’s front page last Monday, the newspaper was contacted by a 44-year-old Bondi man wanting to place an advertisement for the sale of his own kidney to help provide for his daughter’s future: “A cheque for $50,000 would help her to avoid Sydney’s rental crisis when she’s older.” Craig Gill told the Herald, “I don’t want my girl out on the street fighting with hundreds of others for somewhere to live.”

Carney’s proposal—which would effectively legalise trade in human organs—was immediately condemned by doctors and health professionals. Chris Thomas, the chief executive of Transplant Australia, a national organ donor advocacy group, said cash payment for organs “would leave poor people vulnerable”.

“They are probably also more likely to suffer from lifestyle diseases later in life and may end up needing a kidney transplant themselves at some stage in the future because of our increasing rates of obesity.”

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