Health News

Incredibly sad – As the organ trade in Egypt is thriving

The man at the window looks out into the narrow streets of a Cairo suburb. The paths are not paved, the houses are gathered closely, the air carries the smell of Sand and a human being. This man does not want to give his name. He’s not allowed to it. Too dangerous. He smokes, and is silent.

The light of the evening sun makeup this place and makes him more beautiful than he is. The apartment in which the man is hidden, is tiled. To beds, no furniture, on the floor just a Cover, folded. The wife cooks tea, two children playing naked on the cool tiles. Outside, the heat of the Sahara.

It’s a matter of life or death

The nameless wanted a better life and has lost everything. And the story he told then, haltingly and in tears and the Cutter of his tea glass between the fingers always get in again rolling, this story tells of an individual destiny, but this is a teaching piece about the cynicism of the Western world; to make state-tolerated crime and dirty dealings with the despair of those Africans who have nothing except your body, the you parts and money. It comes to organ trafficking and in order to not less than life and death.

With his family the man had left the Sudan. For a better life in Europe. He is one of 193.375 registered refugees in Egypt. They come from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan. They are fleeing from war, to flee, because you don’t want to die. Because every man should have the right to a future.

A kidney as a prize for the better future

“I wanted to over the Mediterranean sea,” he says. But money he had none. 3000 dollars, the Crossing cost for him. An unattainable fortune for a refugee, for people who are working illegally in the factories of this country. In the case of a daily wage of just under five euros. 7000 dollars, he should get one for one of his kidneys. Wanted to sell it in Egypt. Because here, in this country, because they need a kidney.

For the majority of refugees in Egypt is the first stage on the way to Europe. Here there are possibilities, the tractor paths are, the dreams are big. But Egypt has changed after the Arab spring. The economy suffers, and also relates to one of the most important branches of the country: tourism. In the course of the past few years, more than a third were less tourists. In July 2016, the decline was even higher at 42 percent compared to the previous year.

Terror in the Sinai Peninsula, the unstable political situation. The state, led like a dictatorship, which monitors the press, the fear of spying is enormous.

Egypt advertises Plastic surgery at low prices

With great effort the country is trying to rehabilitate the tourism. With medical tourism. The Argentine footballer Lionel Messi advertises worldwide for a Hepatitis C treatment in Egypt, modern hospitals, the international guests for plastic surgery and intensive care medicine with cheap prices for the country lure. The laws make organ transplants possible. 14 days All inclusive holiday with a new kidney, no unusual offers.

The hospitals are up to international standards, the trained Doctors in Europe. And the market is large. In Germany alone, around 12000 people are waiting for a donor organ, who is older than 70, has little chance. An Alternative, then, is: Egypt. Some want to come here way, come the others. The reasons are the same: despair. Fear of one’s own life.

On the back of the man, a 30-centimeter-long scar is located. Not like from the horror movie. The man is woken up in any bathtub full of ice. Everything professionally. The scar looks like a zipper to the Inside of his body.

The receiver and transmitter of the kidney must be related – it’s the law

“7000 dollars you promised me,” he says. His voice is brittle, his gaze restless. No one is allowed to know that he told this story. “You have said it is a kidney for a Sudanese, I had to prove with the signature that we are related, and that I voluntarily donation.” In Egypt, the organs may be voluntarily and without any financial intention donated. The recipient and the donor have to be related.

And then everything went quickly. Admission to hospital, surgery. “I woke up with the greatest pain,” he says. “Then I wanted my money, but no one came. I was lying in a hospital bed and was not alone, my wife knew where I am, I told her what I’m doing.“

He left independently of the hospital; the men who sold his kidney more, received him. Beat him up. The fresh scar was bleeding. He knew the money he would get none. Never. He can’t work any more because the pain is too great, he can’t earn no more money, back in the Sudan he can. He is trapped in a place that promised him freedom.

An International organ trafficking ring

Behind it is a System. WHO sees Egypt as the center of an international organ trafficking ring. And it is not a Problem that remains Hidden. All are aware of it. Only in 2016 they found a doctor who died in an accident in his car, fatally, a cooler full of organs. A scandal, an investigation followed. On Sinai the people to disappear, hollowed-out corpses without eyes, heart, kidney and liver, carelessly in the Sand buried. The may be exceptions, because the business with the kidneys, it is much more perfidious.

Around the Ataba square in Cairo, the Sudanese people are meeting in Cafés. There, the refugees sit with their families, eat, laugh. If it is night, when the temperature in Cairo is bearable, and the Sand settles on the cars and in the faces, then the life begins there.

People drink coffee with spices, watch football. And on small plastic stools and dirty tables is negotiated. The organs. Shameless; it can be easily obtained.

Weakness of the refugees is being exploited

The business with the kidneys is worthwhile. Up to 40000 Euro for a transplant in Egypt costs. The victims, the donors are easy to find. “There’s always a story of a friend who has sold his kidney for $ 3,000, sometimes $ 10,000,” says Fatima Idriss. She was a refugee himself, came to Egypt and built a NGO. Wanted to help other newcomers who are traumatized, sick and weak. “This weakness is exploited.”

Mediterranean men, even Sudanese, sitting in those Cafés, such as the Ataba square. You recognize exactly who has no power. You have to know the Details. “New refugees have no shoes, they haunt the cafes because they can’t afford a drink, hope for charity – and because they know: Here they could sell a kidney.”

Egypt has lost control, the organ trade is flourishing, raids, and fixed, nothing will change participated in the business. Dr. Osama Abdel Hay has worked in Göttingen as an anesthesiologist. Exactly in the time in which a senior physician in the largest transplant scandal in Germany was implicated.

Legalization of the organ trade as a way out?

Today, Hay is the head of the professional Association of Egyptian Doctors. His office in an imposing old building in the centre, French Windows with wooden shutters. A visit there is a journey into the wealthy past of Egypt.

Yes, also in Egypt there were Doctors involved in illegal transactions. “But in the last three years, no case is known to me.” He says: “Physicians who are guilty, are sentenced.” He is familiar with the prospectuses of the clinics, the shady business with the wrong family documents. “The laws must change according to the Iranian model,” he explains. There, the body would legalised trade. Anyone can sell his kidney, anyone can make a piece of their own liver to money. “That would put an end to the illegal Goings-on immediately, and the transactions from the backyards in the hospitals wear,” he says.

It would prevent tragedies, according to another refugee. He also wants to remain anonymous. He wants to tell it in a secret place. Contact men, contact is made.

Organ harvesting in the backyard

He can tell by the violent robbery of his kidney. Of the backyards, and the illegal withdrawals. But his story contains a terrible Detail, one that represents the whole of the medical tourism of Egypt, out of the question.

“I was kidnapped,” he says. Prove it not to be, there are only stories of squads, the draw in the order of Egyptian hospitals by the Sudanese. They promise money and passports. You just have to follow, in a Taxi to Cairo. Directly to the hospital.

He was, however, ambushed, stunned, the kidney was taken out, torn out, his scar is ugly and coarse. Not patched, so that he died, is kept in a room until he was reasonably recovered. “You raped me,” he says. His face is steely, as he tells the. No emotion, no Emotion. He also understands why she humiliated him. They wanted to intimidate him. What he doesn’t understand Why you let him live.

But his tormentors don’t know that he is HIV-positive, you know that he suffers from Hepatitis C. In Sudan, he was sent home, took the disease with them to Egypt. He told, as if it were no big deal. As he was speaking about a runny nose, not on his death sentence.

Kidney donors with HIV – the Doctors don’t care

Then he pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket, a relief organization attests to his disease. “You have found me on the street after I was released,” he says. The Doctors, the withdrawals him the kidney, and knew that he is sick. “But you didn’t care.” They didn’t care, because he was a business. A Stock Of Spare Parts. Like a broken car, to cannibalize.

In Sudan, no one misses him, he is one of the hundreds of thousands of unregistered refugees in Egypt. He will die here. Soon, quickly, unnoticed. But his kidney is to be transplanted.

Someone will buy in any hospital, the kidney. Maybe an older gentleman from Europe, maybe a business man from the Middle East. Or a family for the sick mother. The Operation is at least cost 40000 euros. If the body is not rejecting the kidney, will develop this Person quickly. The liver values are bad, the immune system weaker. And then also the receiver is going to die. In Hepatitis, the HIV. To sold hopes. The Evils of this world.