WHEN he visits Manila next month for a World HealthOrganization meeting, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will make a trip to villages where a number of donors have been selling their organs, “to find what happens after surgery”.
He revealed this in Parliament yesterday, while responding to questions from MPs Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) and Halimah Yaacob (Jurong GRC) on whether the system of letting each hospital review applications for organ transplants was robust enough, following Singapore’s first organ trading case.
He said it wouldn’t be feasible to set up a national-level body to replace hospital ethics committees.
With more than 120 transplants a year here, such a national committee would be “inundated” as each case requires many interviews.
“The most practical (way) — as adopted in most countries I’m aware of — is to leave the decisions to the local level but constitute the ethics committee properly,” he said.
While he agreed withMdm Halimah that a conflict of interest was possible, the committee “should include members from outside the hospital ... as well as doctors and non-doctors”.
“It can be managed properly that way,” he added. “Let us see how when we have fully wrapped up the case (in the courts), to see whether there are better ways of doing it.”
Yesterday, lawyers saidMr Wang Chin Sing — the middleman who allegedly brokered the deal between C K Tang executive director Tang Wee Sung and an Indonesian kidney donor — is likely to plead guilty on Friday.
Mr Tang had indicated that he would be pleading guilty this Thursday. LIN YANQIN
WHEN he visits Manila next month for a World HealthOrganization meeting, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will make a trip to villages where a number of donors have been selling their organs, “to find what happens after surgery”.
He revealed this in Parliament yesterday, while responding to questions from MPs Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) and Halimah Yaacob (Jurong GRC) on whether the system of letting each hospital review applications for organ transplants was robust enough, following Singapore’s first organ trading case.
He said it wouldn’t be feasible to set up a national-level body to replace hospital ethics committees.
With more than 120 transplants a year here, such a national committee would be “inundated” as each case requires many interviews.
“The most practical (way) — as adopted in most countries I’m aware of — is to leave the decisions to the local level but constitute the ethics committee properly,” he said.
While he agreed withMdm Halimah that a conflict of interest was possible, the committee “should include members from outside the hospital ... as well as doctors and non-doctors”.
“It can be managed properly that way,” he added. “Let us see how when we have fully wrapped up the case (in the courts), to see whether there are better ways of doing it.”
Yesterday, lawyers saidMr Wang Chin Sing — the middleman who allegedly brokered the deal between C K Tang executive director Tang Wee Sung and an Indonesian kidney donor — is likely to plead guilty on Friday.
Mr Tang had indicated that he would be pleading guilty this Thursday. LIN YANQIN
WHEN he visits Manila next month for a World HealthOrganization meeting, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will make a trip to villages where a number of donors have been selling their organs, “to find what happens after surgery”.
He revealed this in Parliament yesterday, while responding to questions from MPs Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) and Halimah Yaacob (Jurong GRC) on whether the system of letting each hospital review applications for organ transplants was robust enough, following Singapore’s first organ trading case.
He said it wouldn’t be feasible to set up a national-level body to replace hospital ethics committees.
With more than 120 transplants a year here, such a national committee would be “inundated” as each case requires many interviews.
“The most practical (way) — as adopted in most countries I’m aware of — is to leave the decisions to the local level but constitute the ethics committee properly,” he said.
While he agreed withMdm Halimah that a conflict of interest was possible, the committee “should include members from outside the hospital ... as well as doctors and non-doctors”.
“It can be managed properly that way,” he added. “Let us see how when we have fully wrapped up the case (in the courts), to see whether there are better ways of doing it.”
Yesterday, lawyers saidMr Wang Chin Sing — the middleman who allegedly brokered the deal between C K Tang executive director Tang Wee Sung and an Indonesian kidney donor — is likely to plead guilty on Friday.
Mr Tang had indicated that he would be pleading guilty this Thursday. LIN YANQIN
-Today Online, Aug 27 2008