The whirling hum of a dialysis machine could have been the soundtrack to the rest of Zahra Hajikarimi’s life but for an unusual program in Iran that allows people to buy a kidney from a living donor.
Iran’s kidney program stands apart from other organ donation systems around the world by openly allowing payments, typically of several thousand dollars. It has helped effectively eliminate the country’s kidney transplant waiting list since 1999, the government says, in contrast to Western nations like the United States, where tens of thousands hope for an organ and thousands die waiting each year.
Critics warn the system can prey on the poor in Iran’s long-sanctioned economy, with ads promising cash for kidneys. The World Health Organization and other groups oppose “commercializing” organ transplants. Some argue such a paid system in the US or elsewhere could put those who cannot afford to pay at a disadvantage in securing a kidney if they need one.
But as black-market organ sales continue in countries like India, the Philippines and Pakistan and many die each year waiting for kidneys, some doctors and other experts have urged America and other nations to consider adopting aspects of Iran’s system to save lives.
“Some donors have financial motivations. We can’t say they don’t. If (those donors) didn’t have financial motives, they wouldn’t ... donate a kidney,” Hashem Ghasemi, the head of the patient-run Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association of Iran, told The Associated Press. “And some people just have charitable motivations.”
The AP gained rare access to Iran’s program, visiting patients on dialysis waiting for an organ, speaking to a man preparing to sell one of his kidneys and watching surgeons in Tehran perform a transplant. All of those interviewed stressed the altruistic nature of the program — even as graffiti scrawled on walls and trees near hospitals in Iran’s capital advertised people offering to sell a kidney for cash.

Source: Arab News