Today, there are 3,805 residents of Kazakhstan, including 90 children anticipating their turn for transplantation.  Most of them are out there for kidneys.  Last year, 320 passed away, hoping their turn would come.  All that was several days ago voiced by Amanat MP Guldara Nurusova.  Having said that, she addressed Vice-Premier Altay Kulginov with an appeal to legalize commercial transplantation of kidneys from living non-related donors.

No Money, No Kidneys Either …

MP said that Kazakh legislation allows transplantation of kidneys among family members, but those members are not always necessarily compatible, while there always are people ready to donate their organs.  The law prohibits transplantation of kidneys from those unrelated.  Sometimes, people in Kazakhstan take the steps towards illegal sales of their organs to earn some money.  In some cases, those seeking transplanted organs lose their moneys, while criminals collect the money and disappear.  There is another option – our people enter into illegal agreements abroad, such agreements containing no guarantees of compensation.

Several years ago, a “black transplantation” scandal happened in the Kazakhstan medical community.  Gani Kuttymuratov and Abylai Donbay were accused of illegal transplantation.  In 2022, both doctors were plead not guilty, but the case shed some light on the problems existing in the transplantation sector.

Why is that problem urgent and requires discussion? Let us try to dig in.

Do an Honor

The main reason, why our government began to think about legalization of “inter vivos” transplantation is the shortage in post-mortem donors.

In the countries, where the transplantation became an integral part of the healthcare system, residents do not face ethical problems devising organs to others.  In Spain and Croatia, there are some 45-50 donors per one million of population. 

Kazakhstan residents hasten not to devise their organs after death.  Their relatives – people authorized to make such uneasy decisions, most often refuse to allow post-mortem transplantation – for religious or for ethical considerations.  Doctors  are not willing to perform transplantations in secret from family members, because such discretionary acts may lead to litigations.

While alive, residents of Kazakhstan prefer not to think about such a serious topic and have fears that in the case of an accidental death, their organs will be take out.

Kazakh health care professionals say, that above scenarios are of low probability, because procedures of documentation of death of donorship are identical all over the world.  Before assigning a dead person a donor, doctors must be assured that the brain is dead.  Only after that, they will have legal grounds to study the dead person to identify that person’s suitability for donorship.  Not necessarily always is that so, that the organs shall be good for transplantation – just for the physical condition, which may be bad. So, really, one has to “deserve the right of ownership”.

All, But Essentials

Of course those who find the money, travel abroad for transplantation.  But not everyone will find the money.  Those who can’t, will have to stay and just hope.

Abroad, one will have to pay USD 60-65 thousand for a kidney transplantation.  Transplantation of lungs or heart shall cost way more. 

Donors are residents of countries, where transplantation exists.

If to discuss Kazakhstan, in our country transplantation is way cheaper, and, in some cases, free of charge.  Relatively low prices attract foreign patients to Kazakhstan.  Every year, our healthcare institutions receive some USD 6.4 million for transplantation services.  But those operations are not accessible to our people.  In reality, we have all it takes to be a successful transplantations operator, but our people are not willing to donate their organs.