It was hardly surprising when a Dutch TV network decided to brave a Europe-wide storm of controversy this month and air a TV reality show featuring a dying woman offering her kidney for transplant.
From Chile to India and China, tens of thousands of kidney disease sufferers, pinning their hopes on donated organs, face waits of three to four years—when they survive.
Eight Mexicans die a day hankering for organ transplants and even in wealthier Europe, 10 deaths are registered daily for want of a donor.
At least 100,000 people await a kidney transplant in India, 30,000 need new livers and about 10,000 need a new heart at any given point of time, estimate officials from the country’s leading transplant organizations.
With demand outstripping supply, and medical red-tape differing from one country to the next, transplant tourism and trafficking in human body parts are rife, areas under scrutiny by trade and ethical watchdogs.
The Dutch reality show, criticised for poor taste and questionable ethics, finally turned out to be a do-good publicity stunt—an actress had been hired to play the part of the terminally ill woman and the organizers said the aim was to spotlight the global shortage of organ donors.
The strategy worked. The show attracted 1.2 million viewers and that same day, 12,000 people in The Netherlands applied to donate different body parts.
“We worked on this stunt for a year,” said Laurens Drillich, director of BNN channel, whose founder died waiting for a kidney transplant. “We received a lot of international attention for a problem that does really exist.”
Oscar-winning Stephen Frears highlighted the drama of organ trafficking from poor to rich in his 2002 Dirty Pretty Things, and Pedro Almodovar’s Oscar-winning All About My Mother, touching on transplants, goes on stage in London’s Old Vic in September.
Despite several transplant-themed prime-time Brazilian TV soaps, with titles such as From Body to Soul, and a website (ww.adote.org.br) aimed at drumming up donors, at the end of 2006, a total of 66,019 people were still kicking their heels awaiting transplants in the South American country. Of these, 32,155 needed new kidneys.
What were their chances? In 2006, there were a mere 2,950 kidney transplants in Brazil, according to the Brazilian Organ Transplant Association.
“In Peru too the problem is extremely serious,” said Hugo Torres, who heads the transplant office ESSALUD.
According to worldwide data collected by AFP, kidneys far and away top the transplant wish-list, but no global statistics are available on the number of people who die waiting.
In the US last year, 6,287 transplant-seekers died (more than 96,000 are currently registered), according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. In China, 1.5 million people need transplants each year but only 10,000 obtain them.
Registration for donorship differs from country to country but in many parts of the world, endemic shortages are compounded by families refusing to hand over organs even against the deceased’s wishes.