Organ trade: Top Vizag doctor held in illegal kidney racket

Visakhapatnam: The Odisha illegal kidney racket seems to have links to Vizag. On Tuesday, the Odisha cops, with the help of local police, arrested one of the directors of Seven Hills Hospital, Dr N. Prabhakar Babu, for allowing a kidney transplantation at the hospital.

Last month, the Cuttack police had busted an illegal kidney sale racket where mediators were luring poor people for organ donation, bypassing the stipulated norms of Odisha’s State Authorisation Committee on Human Organ Transplant.

It is learnt that the racket was unearthed when a woman victim who had given a kidney, lodged a complaint with the Cuttack police stating that she was paid a paltry sum though she was promised around Rs 10 lakh.

According to police sources, the kidney transplantation was done at the Vizag’s well-known Seven Hills hospital and its medical director, Dr N. Prabhakar Babu, was said to be responsible for the operation.

Apparently, to avoid arrest, Dr Prabhakar had got himself admitted at King George Hospital four days ago, complaining chest pain. However, a special police team from Cuttack took him into custody on Tuesday after a team of doctors certified that he was fit.

He was arrested under Sections 320B, 18, 368, 471 and 420 of IPC for performing the organ transplantation without verifying facts. Meanwhile, the hospital representatives said that they had performed the operation after they were shown documents stating that the kidney donor and the patient were related to each other.