The Kenyatta National Hospital has asked Kenyans to stop presenting themselves at the hospital with the intention of selling off their body parts.
In what points to the difficult times Kenyans are going through, the national referral hospital says that hundreds of people have been requesting if the hospital can buy their body parts such as kidneys.
‘How much for my kidney?’ is our most inboxed question,” KNH stated. “Please note that organ sale is strictly prohibited and illegal. You can only donate out of free will.”
Apparently, Kenyans who are seeking to sell their body parts believe that they can break away from poverty by auctioning themselves out for millions.
A few weeks ago, Kenyans were caught in a viral meme that indicated that people were making millions in Zimbabwe from selling off their toes.
Studies show that more than 10 per cent of all transplant organs are from the black market.
Donors are flown or harvested organs exported to developed countries in a very organized manner that make it difficult for the authorities to smell a rat. Kenya and other African countries are said to be easy targets because of the high poverty and lack of strict laws regulating the sale of human organs.
A recent study commissioned by the UN and Council of Europe and conducted by Centre for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania says rich people from wealthier nations are leaving their countries to go to Africa, Asia and South America for what its terms as “transplant tourism”.
These rich individuals or people looking for the organs are said to pay huge sums of money, a fraction of which ends up with the person selling the organ. A kidney, for example, can fetch over Sh. 1 million with sellers getting a third of the money.
The rest is pocketed by brokers and a chain of individuals involved in this illegal business.