Doctor held for illegal kidney transplantation

Visakhapatnam: An illegal organ transplantation incident in Sraddha Hospital in the city came to light after a dispute on money settlement arose between the donor and the recipient.

Visakhapatnam city task force arrested M Manjunatha, a Bengaluru-based Ayurvedic doctor, who acted as a mediator between the donor and the recipient, along with D. Prabhakar, an in-house nephrologist of the hospital, who performed the surgery.

In dire need of money, the donor J Parthasaradhi of Hyderabad posted an advertisement online to sell his kidney. Taking this as an opportunity, Dr Manjunatha approached Parthasaradhi to transplant his kidney to a patient in Sraddha hospital.

While Dr Prabhakar received Rs 11 lakh for the transplant, the hospital received Rs 12 lakh for showing the donor as a relative of the patient. The donor was shown as the brother of the patient by creating a morphed Aadhaar card.

The transplant which took place on July 17, 2018, was exposed after Parthasaradhi approached the city police, after he received only Rs 5 lakh rupees out of Rs 12 lakh which was promised to him.

Addressing the media here on Thursday, Police Commissioner Mahesh Chandra Laddha said that the department would look into the 12 other kidney transplant operations conducted in Sraddha Hospital to verify if the surgeries were done following the protocol of Medical Council or not.

He further added that anyone who was linked with the case would be arrested. He requested public to come forward and inform the police if anyone gets involved in illegal organ transplant.