Days after the Deutsche Welle, German media ZDF, and ‘Der Spiegel’ alleged that an Eldoret-based private hospital is at the centre of an international organ trafficking, the heads of the hospital have responded to the matter.
Speaking during a morning show with Spice FM on Wednesday, April 16, the vice president of the hospital said that all organ transplants in the facility are conducted within the law.
Additionally, the vice president further claimed that patients who go to the hospital for organ transplants are the ones responsible for looking for a donor, a process she denies the hospital is involved in.
The vice president further refuted claims that the hospital receives money from organ donors, stressing that the facility only receives money from the services rendered to the client.
"We got allegations that there are some unprocedural transplants that are being done in our hospital, but what I would like to say is that all transplants conducted in our facility are strictly adhering to the law," she said.
"We want to make it clear that patients come with their donors to the facility, and the hospital is not responsible for the sourcing and selection of donors. The clients come to the hospital, and the procedures are followed accordingly," she added.
Additionally, according to the vice president, the facility receives international patients for organ transplants, a factor she attributed to the high success rate of the hospital.
"Our success rate is 99 per cent, and it is known everywhere in this world, and that's why I think the international press is trying to push us down," she said.
In a statement on Tuesday, April 15, the Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said that the ministry has been aware of suspicious activity from the hospital since 2023.
According to Duale, the ministry deployed a multidisciplinary team, comprising kidney transplant specialists, an ethicist, representatives from the Kenya Blood Transfusion and Transplant Services (KBTTS) Secretariat, the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC), the ministry of Health administration, and academic experts to investigate the matter in depth.
From the first fact-finding trip to the hospital between December 5 and 8, 2023, the team discovered that the hospital has conducted 372 transplants over the past five years, with most beneficiaries being residents of the East African Community, Australia, Israel, Japan, the USA, and the UK.
According to the ministry,99 per cent of these were made using new technology, however, the hospital lacked sufficient documentation to verify the relationship between donors and recipients, with some of the documents revealing that donors came from different nationalities.
Additionally, the ministry claimed that all the Human Leukocyte antigens (HLA), which are crucial before transplants, were made in India without a green light from the government.
Currently, the ministry has confirmed that the team will conduct a follow-up trip to the facility to ensure compliance. Additionally, the ministry will conduct an audit on all the other kidney transplant facilities in the region.
The Ministry of Health will conduct a follow-up visit to the facility to assess progress on compliance and to conduct a comprehensive clinical audit," the statement read.
