Organ trade

Transplantation

Main article: Transplantation

2024: Ukraine revealed a scheme for the export of human organs with the participation of the ex-Minister of Health

In Ukraine, law enforcement officers stopped the activities of an organized criminal group engaged in the illegal export of human organs abroad. The group included the former deputy minister of health of the country, as well as a number of doctors from leading Kyiv clinics. This was reported on June 3, 2024 by the Ukrainian edition of Strana, citing its own sources in law enforcement agencies.

As the newspaper notes, the criminal community, specializing in illegal transplantology, totaled 11 people. In addition to the ex-deputy minister of health, whose identity has not yet been disclosed in the interests of the investigation, it included medical workers of the Central Kyiv Hospital and several other medical institutions in the capital of Ukraine.

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According to the investigation, the organizers of the criminal scheme were engaged in the seizure of organs, tissues and cells from patients who were in a helpless state, without their consent or the consent of their legal representatives. The anatomical materials thus obtained were subsequently illegally transported abroad for sale on the black market of transplantology.

One of Strana's interlocutors in law enforcement agencies stressed that all persons involved in the criminal case initiated on the fact of exposing the criminal scheme face severe punishment. In accordance with Ukrainian law, such crimes provide for imprisonment for up to 12 years.

Experts in the field of medical law and bioethics point out that the disclosure of a large-scale scheme for the illegal export of human organs with the participation of a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine indicates that there are serious gaps in the system of regulation and control over the field of transplantology in the country. In their opinion, urgent measures are needed to tighten responsibility for such crimes, as well as strengthen supervision of the activities of medical institutions and personnel with access to donor organs and tissues.^[1]

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