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Rich Foreigners Jump List for Brit Organs

Doctors outraged as a record 8,000 Britons await transplants

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 4, 2009 12:49 PM CST

(Newser) – Despite dire organ shortages for ailing British patients, the livers of 50 UK donors were sold to foreigners for nearly $110,000 each, the Times of London reports. Forty patients from Greece and Cyprus—as well as others from non-EU nations including Libya, the UAE, China, and Israel—received liver transplants in Britain at the expense of their governments.

The private transplant operations took place at publicly funded hospitals, and surgeons received about $40,000 of the operation fee. One doctor called the practice “inappropriate.” But European law allows patients from member states to seek treatment in Britain, which isn’t compelled to treat them. A record 8,000 Britons are on public lists waiting for organ transplants.

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The organs of 50 British National Health Service donors have been given to foreign patients who have paid about £75,000 each for private transplant operations in the past two years. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

A record 8,000 Britons are on NHS lists waiting for transplant organs. About 260 British patients are waiting for a liver. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Theatrre staff anxiously look on as Consultant Surgeon Andrew Ready conducts a live donor kidney transplant at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham on June 9, 2006, in Birmingham, England. (Getty Images)

The kidney of Tracey Playfair is implanted in the groin area of her sister by Consultant Surgeon Andrew Ready and his team during a live donor kidney transplant at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham... (Getty Images)

Consultant Surgeon Andrew Ready checks on his patients on the wards of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham on June 9, 2006, in Birmingham, England. (Getty Images)

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While there is a surfeit of UK residents awaiting transplant it is correct that these patients should have priority.
- Peter Friend, president of the British Transplantation Society

We do not have a European organ donation system. It is a UK system, and I therefore feel that the system is essentially for the benefit of residents in the UK. - Peter Friend, president of the British Transplantation Society

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Rich Foreigners Jump List for Brit Organs