A senior surgeon in Germany has come under fire for going ahead with a kidney transplant operation using an organ from a living donor—despite the proposed operation being opposed by colleagues in psychological medicine and the ethics committee of the regional medical council.
The surgical university hospital in Essen, where surgeon Christoph Broelsch is director, was approached by a dialysis patient from Israel who said his cousin from Moldavia, who was 30 years younger, wanted to donate his kidney.
In 15 out of Germany's 16 states, transplant law requires, in the case of living donors, that an independent committee ensures that there is no commercial basis to the donation and that there are emotional and personal ties between donor and recipient. None were found in this case, so the patient's request was refused. He decided to resort to a hospital in the one state without such a rule, Thuringia. He went to the surgical university hospital in Jena, where he was accepted and where Professor Broelsh carried out the operation.
The medical director of Essen University Hospital, Werner Havers, rejected any suspicion that the operation had involved any commercial trade in organs but said that Professor Broelsch should have abided by the vote of his Essen colleagues and the transplant operation should not have gone ahead.