Closer to the Kindred Spirit

For the past two years, we had been seriously contemplating about kidney transplant for one of our brothers, who lost both his kidneys, and now is on dialysis twice a week. He was in the South, hoping to get a kidney transplant, but when everything was ready, and his papers went to the medical council of the district, a customary procedure in any state, his application was rejected. Therefore he had to be brought to our place, and we had been contemplating what we could do, keeping in mind our moral, legal and ethical standards, without impinging on the law of the land. But we have realized that it is not easy to do this.

We were lucky to have several medical practitioners to give us ideas about what we could do; in fact having so many doctors to advise and propose to us, has been one of the drawbacks of the entire process, which had been getting delayed, when we wished to explore every avenue that different doctors proposed to us. Requesting a kidney donation from a non-relative donor had been a shady area which we wanted to avoid from the beginning; but looking at the situation of our companion needing a kidney, we have no other option than to explore other ways of getting a kidney for him from the non-relative category, and he has a lady, wife of his brother’s friend, who is ready to donate one of her kidneys.

What we do not wish to do is : endanger the life of a person, in order to save the life of one of our companions. Medical practitioners have said that a healthy person can easily donate one of his/her kidneys, and generally the lone kidney would start functioning for the two, and there should not be any problem. But what if later in life, the person experiences problem with the kidney? That is a remote possibility, but we cannot brush it aside altogether. We were also wondering, if one of our companions not donate a kidney for this ailing companion! That would be more in keeping with the fellowship we share in common, but would that take shape?

I could see that the companion who is in dire need of a kidney is frantically looking forward to a transplant, so that he could drink water normally, and work and keep himself as a normal person would. Sometimes he talks to me in such pathetic voice that I cannot be indifferent to him. At the same time, this is not an issue which can be plunged into without calculating the risk factors, the repercussions, because here it is not an individual who is involved, but an institution. We are required to tread slowly and steadily, so that we do not do anything which may jeopardize our work and mission. But not everyone would look at this angle.

Moral and ethical issues cannot be left out, while considering a non-relative donor; the law of the land had been made stringent, so that a poor person is not led to sell his/her organs for money, though such things happen throughout the country. Our companion did admit that in the South, it was such a case, where an agent was given Rupees two lacs, hoping that his candidate’s kidney would fit, and he would get another two lacs at the end of the transplant. I was told that the donor would get a minimum amount. Whether we like it or not, organ donation is a lucrative business, where innocent poor are victims and even the law is not able to stop it. The question that I feel we should ask ourselves is, whether we should allow ourselves to buy the life of a poor person, badly in need of money?