TheStar.com | GTA | Patients blamed in kidney scam Patients blamed in kidney scam
`Selfish' people seeking transplants bargain down price, medical tourism agent says
Feb 05, 2008 04:30 AM
Prithi Yelaja
Staff Reporter
Desperate transplant patients, who don't really care how a donor organ overseas is procured, are just as much to blame as Amit Kumar, kingpin of an underground kidney trafficking ring busted by police in India, says a Calgary-based medical tourism operator.
Aruna Thurairajan, owner of Overseas Medical Services, gets a few calls every week from patients from as far away as Algeria needing kidney transplants.
A growing global industry, medical tourism connects patients primarily in North America with health services overseas.
"Money is a big factor for people to decide where to go. Often they want to bargain how much to pay the vendor (organ donor). Some of them can be quite selfish and mean. They think they can buy the kidney for peanuts. That's why the likes of (Kumar) can prosper. So the patient should also be blamed along with him, because the patient bargains down the price," said Thurairajan.
"It's a big racket. There's big money involved, but the vendor gets only a fraction of that."
A Brampton resident trained in Ayurvedic medicine, Kumar is wanted by Interpol for "crimes against life and health." He is on the run after police raided his clinic in Gurgaon, India, which illegally harvested kidneys from as many as 500 people, typically labourers who were duped. Kumar was allegedly charging patients wanting transplants $50,000.
Thurairajan won't send patients to India because transplants between unrelated living donors are illegal there. Kumar's case "gives medical tourism a bad rap," she says.
Wait lists of several years in North America drive the huge demand for overseas kidney transplants.
That this is a straight market transaction is highlighted by the industry lingo used: the donor is referred to as the "vendor;" the person recruiting donors is the "broker," while "agents" like Thurairajan recruit patients.
The Philippines is the only country in the world that allows living donor kidney transplants, according to Thurairajan.
The all-inclusive cost, which includes airfare, a six-week hospital stay, surgery and follow-up medical services for the donor for one year is $120,000. Of that amount, the donor gets a fee of $10,000.
Colombia also offers kidney transplants for $120,000, but only from cadavers and only after local citizens have rejected the organs, usually on the basis that they are "too old," said Thurairajan.
"Cadavers older than 35 years of age are usually up for grabs for foreigners. One just needs to hang around and within a week or two one can get an organ.
"It's a very lucrative market. In many pockets of India it has been going on for a long time. There are stories that in the fishing villages of south India almost everybody has sold a kidney."
Some medical tourism operators, like Vancouver-based Timely Medical Alternatives, won't arrange transplants because of ethical concerns, said company president Rick Baker.
Interpol handout.
The hunt for alleged kidney harvester, Dr. Amit Kumar, has led investigators to Brampton, a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of Ontario, Canada.

Indian investigators allege that Kumar is the kingpin of a ring that removed kidneys of poor laborers in India for transplantation to the highest bidding patients, usually foreigners. After a request by Indian police via an Interpol "red notice", Canadian police located a house in Brampton owned by Kumar, who has been dubbed "Dr. Horror" by the Indian press.

The house is occupied by a woman, presumed to be his wife, and two young children. Kumar purchased the 5,600 sq ft (~510 m²) home on February 2, 2007 for C$610,000. Reportedly, additional upgrades were performed at the home, including an in-ground pool, at a cost of C$100,000. The family drives an expensive SUV. The children, two boys aged 4 and 5, are said to be enrolled at private schools.

Dr. Kumar, a nephrologist, born Santosh Rameshwar Raut, was known to his neighbors. He told them that he was a cardiovascular surgeon in India, but that he wanted to buy a hotel in Canada and, after one last trip to India to tie up loose ends, permanently relocate to Canada.

"We are completely shocked," a neighbor told the ''Toronto Star''. "We used to joke at parties that he must be loaded to get such a beautiful wife, but nothing prepared us for this." Another neighbor told the paper, "It's very unusual for someone to come here from India and buy a big house like this and a Lexus. Doctors in India just don't make that kind of money."

Meanwhile, investigators are no closer to Amit Kumar, than they were a few days ago. It is widely believed that he is trying to flee India for Canada via Nepal, a country for which he is alleged to have a passport.

Police in Mumbai, however, believe he is still in India. "He is very much in India," commissioner Rakesh Maria said on Tuesday. "We suspect he will never leave."

"He will stay in India — it won't be easy to conduct his illegal activities anywhere else," he said. "In a country like Canada, it would almost be impossible to find kidney donors in large numbers."

However, after a request by the Haryana state government, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will soon take lead in the investigation.

"We haven't yet received a final word to start investigations," CBI Director Vijay Shankar said. "We will begin working on the case as per legal process." Thus far, police in Gurgoan, Moradabad, Mumbai and Rajasthan have been investigating the case separately.

The case has called attention to medical tourism, the practice of traveling abroad for health care at more affordable rates. Kumar is alleged to have charged US$50,000 for a kidney transplant. The donors are said to have been paid the equivalent of US$1,200. Even so, the donors, according to widespread reports and testimonials, may not have realized what they were getting into when they went with a stranger for a well-paying job.

The ''Toronto Star'' interviewed a medical tourism travel agent, who operates openly. Aruna Thurairajan, who runs Overseas Medical Services in Calgary, Alberta, says that she frequently gets calls from patients in need of a kidney. Thurairajan refuses to give referrals for transplants because it "gives medical tourism a bad rap."

"Money is a big factor for people to decide where to go. Often they want to bargain how much to pay the vendor organ donor. Some of them can be quite selfish and mean. They think they can buy the kidney for peanuts. That's why the likes of Amit Kumar can prosper. So the patient should also be blamed along with him, because the patient bargains down the price," said Thurairajan.

But the victims of this illegal trade are not exclusively the poor day laborers but sometimes the clients themselves, according to a report by ''Hindustan Times''. The investigation cited a driver for a close associate of Amit Kumar and claims that at least three foreigners died on Dr. Kumar's operating table. He was able to name three Turkish nationals who all died in India between 2003 and 2005, officially from cardiac arrest. The driver, Harpal, says that the bodies were brought to a hospital in Ballabgarh, Faridabad, where the local authorities colluded with the doctors to list the cause of death as heart failure.