ORGAN DONATION IN NIGERIA.

ORGAN DONATION IN NIGERIA

Inequality and poverty have been driving forces pushing some of the young people in Nigeria to sell their organs to get wealthy afterwards. Gradually organ harvesting is becoming a lucrative business in Nigeria. We will try to elucidate within the confines of Nigerian law the following,

Organs
Organ harvesting
Transplant
Organ trading

ORGANS

According to the National Organ and transplant Act of 1984 human organs are defined to include the liver, kidney, heart, lungs, pancreas, bone marrow, cornea, eye, bone, skin and others.

ORGAN HARVESTING

Organ harvesting is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues from a human body for reuse in another human body. Organs harvested are used for transplant.

TRANSPLANT

Transplantation is defined as the treatment of the end stage of organ failure. There are two sources of organ transfer namely;

Deceased donor
Living donor

Deceased donors are people who stated the donation of their organs in their Will or accident victims with unknown relatives.

Living donors are spouse, friends, relatives or voluntary donor who consents for their organs to be harvested and used for transplant. Organs are also harvested from trafficked or kidnapped victims.

ORGAN TRADING

Is the buying and selling of organs for profit purposes without going through the medical system.

The most demanded organ is the kidney, people have failed kidney daily 15 transplants is usually done per hour according to global statistics, leading to illegally generated funds through the trafficking of the human organ. An instance is Senator Ike Ekweremadu who is currently undergoing trial in a UK court. The fact of the case was, The senator’s daughter developed kidney failure which necessitated the need for a kidney transplant, the senator took Mr David Ukpo a 21 years old man to the UK for his organ to be harvested and donated to his daughter. A test was conducted at Royal free hospital Hampstead, North West London to confirm whether the organs match but the result came out negative. A misunderstanding erupted as a result of the mismatch of the supposed organs. So out of fear of being deported, the young man went and reported himself at the Staines police station in Surrey, UK. Which now lead to the arrest and detention of the Senator and his wife.

Research has shown that most of the people who are seen as into ritualism harvest people’s organs, sell them and make lots of money. A lady was promised a job abroad, and her visa and everything was done by these people (organ harvested) who fronted themselves as a recruitment firm, they took her outside the country injected her, harvested one of her kidneys and sent her back to Nigeria and she didn’t see them again. She has been seeking justice since then. Truth be told a lot of people go through the same thing on a daily bases but are not privileged to have proper counsel, some are ignorant of their rights and some are afraid as a result of the threat, some want to avoid stigmatization. Just like victims of rape, organs donor sometimes fear that society will stigmatize them.

Some have been put in place to regulate organ donation in Nigeria.

Section 48(1) National Health Act 2014 states that a person shall not remove tissues, blood or blood product from the body of another living person for any purpose except;

With the informed consent of the person from whom the tissue, blood or blood product is removed is granted in a prescribed manner ;
That the consent clause may be waived for medical investigation and treatment of emergency cases;
following prescribed protocol with the appropriate authority.

Subsection 2 of the above-mentioned Act states that a person shall not remove tissues which are not replaceable by natural processes from a person younger than eighteen years.

Does the above section imply that a person can remove tissues that are not replaceable by natural process from someone above eighteen years?

Another position of the law in organ harvesting as stipulated in the National Health ACT 2014 Section 51(1); states that an individual is not allowed to remove an organ from a living person for transplantation in another living person or carry out transplantation except;

In a hospital authorized for that purpose
By a medical practitioner in charge of the clinical services in the hospital or any other practitioner authorised by him
For transplantation, there shall be an independent tissue transplantation committee within any health establishment that engages in the act or practice of transplantation.

Section 13 of the Trafficking In Persons [Prohibition] Enforcement And Administration Act (TIPPEA Act) condemns all forms of human trafficking. It also defined trafficking in persons in its section 82, to include; “… the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person or debt bondage to place or hold the person whether for or not in involuntary servitude (domestic, sexual or reproductive) in forced or bonded labour, or in slavery-like conditions, the removal of organs or generally for exploitative purposes.

Due to the unavailability of organs in low-income countries like Ni Nigeria people have resulted to trafficking and kidnapping people with the sole aim of harvesting their organs and selling them. Can Organ donation, transplanting, and harvesting truly be regulated in Nigeria?

Reference

National Health Bill 2014.Section 48(1), 51(1,3)