There’s been a little bit of talk here where I live (Australia) about whether people should be able to sell their organs to those in need.

Now we have a (very) right wing conservative government here in Australia, and a frustrating thing about conservative governments is that they’re really good at forcing their religious views on everyone. I would imagine by now that you can see where I’m going with this……

The general idea of the sale of organs for transplantation was met with general derision by our MP’s.

I’m a little perplexed by this, as anybody can walk off the street into a hospital, and offer to donate a kidney. Hell, they can even advertise in the newspaper - “Kidney to give away”, but try putting a price on your organ?

“No, sorry, we can’t have that!”

I just can’t understand how this is a problem. If I have the need for a kidney, and the financial resources to buy it, where’s the problem? The person selling the organ is doing it for financial gain? So what?

That person was probably not going to give their organ away for free, so nobody on the waiting list is missing out.

I can understand the governments fear that people could be coerced into becoming a donor, but there are simple safeguards which could be implemented to circumvent these issues.

Maybe a way for the government to get around their dislike of this idea is to offer the money themselves. It costs up to $72,000 to keep a person on dialysis for a year. The average wait here in Australia for a kidney is approximately four years. So we’re looking at $280,000 minimum before the average patient gets their transplant.

The cost of a transplant is less than half of this.

If the government offered to cover all the medical expenses of live donors, plus a one off payment of, say, $50,000, the financial benefits to the health system would be enormous.

I would imagine that live donor rates would jump dramatically under these circumstances, which has the two fold benefit of decreasing the financial burden on the health system, and decreasing the waiting times for those on dialysis.