Dr. Conall O'Seaghdha:

On the issue of counselling patients, on occasion, patients arrive with printed material asking about this. I have polled all the transplant nephrologists in Beaumont Hospital. To be clear, when this issue arises we would dissuade the patient in the strongest possible terms, based on the source of the organs but also on outcomes for the patients.

Deputy Crowe asked about the situation in Egypt. I cannot speak knowledgeably about that except to say that I know of a patient of Egyptian origin who returned to Egypt to receive a kidney transplant this year. The matter of mandatory reporting is complex. Any legislation around that would need to take into account that there are some circumstances where patients can legitimately return to their country of origin for transplantation. The usual story we are told is that their brother or other family member is living in Pakistan, Nigeria and so on and they have to return home to have their transplantation. There is some complexity around this. It is not possible as a physician to tease that out. There are also circumstances where patients can legitimately travel to other countries. We have an organ sharing programme and we have a paired exchange kidney programme which we are currently setting up with Belfast. Paired exchange arises when a person wishes to donate a kidney to a spouse but cannot do so for immunological reasons and a similar pair exists such that we can swap organs. For this to function well, we need a large pool of patients to draw from. We have a memorandum of understanding with Belfast, which is being drafted. In circumstances where that arises, patients will legitimately travel to receive transplants. There are important details that need to be factored in rather than an overall issue of a patient not being permitted to travel to receive a transplant.