…To initiate legal action, if…
By Hassan Zaggi
The Medical Director of Alliance Hospital and Services Ltd, Dr.Christopher Otabor, has said that his hospital has nothing to do with illegal organ harvesting.
He disclosed this when reacting to a cover story published by one of the prominent newspapers in Abuja, on Monday.
He, therefore, appealed to the paper to dig deep to unravel the key players in the illegal trade of vital organs harvesting in the capital city.
“From the report, it is obvious that there is an organ market out there which Alliance hospital is not part of and can never condescend to transact in.
” The writer of the article obviously took a position against the hospital, pronounced a guilty verdict on it and called for punishment for the hospital without due regards to the facts,” he said.
In the meantime, Dr. Irabor said, the hospital has instructed it’s lawyers to write the newspaper to retract the defamatory publication against Alliance Hospital within a specific period of time or face legal action.
While expressing concern that the report was a deliberate campaign of calumny targeted at the Alliance Hospital, Dr. Irabor said that the hospital has set of rules it always adhered to when embarking on kidney transplant.
According to him: “As a rule, kidney recipients source for their donors and present them to the hospital for screening for compatibility and fitness for donation. After the screening, we proceed to ensure they meet the legal requirements which include that the Donor must be 18 years or above; the donor must sign consent in the presence of two adult witnesses, donor is expected to swear an affidavit stating his age and affirming that the decision to donate is by free will and there is no compulsion or financial inducement and the relationship of the donor to the recipient.
“The law governing organ transplant in Nigeria is scanty and limited in depth. It only requires the donor to be above 18 years of age and the fact that there is no financial inducement for the donation.
“We have followed the above protocol strictly for all the kidney transplant cases done by the hospital.”
While saying that this is the second time the newspaper is publishing similar stories against the hospital and written by the same reporter, the Medical Director said: “This second publication of December 10 is in line with the first and it is a peddler of half truth.
“While we appreciate the need for investigative journalism to get to the root of societal problems, we must also be circumspect in order not to appear biased and miss the mark as they that come to equity must come with clean hands.”
He recalled: “On Saturday August 19, 2023, Daily Trust newspaper carried as their cover story an article titled: How Abuja syndicates lured minor for kidney harvest. The picture of Alliance hospital was contiguous to the caption.
“At first look at the headline, one would reason that the article is addressing the problem of organ sales in Nigeria but on reading through, it will become clear to any discerning reader that Alliance Hospital is the target of campaign of calumny here.
“Seeing that the furore that greeted their first article of August 19, 2023, had died down without achieving their goal, Daily Trust newspaper published another article on Sunday 10, December, 2023, written by the same staff of the newspaper house.
“The title for the second publication is: Investigation: ‘Inside Abuja’s Kidney ‘Market’ Where the Rich Prey on The Poor. Again a beautiful title but the purpose is to vilify Alliance Hospital.”
Alliance hospital debunks alleged involvement in illegal organ harvesting
