Health Minister of Kazakhstan comments on arrest of surgeon suspected of illegal transplantation

AKIPRESS.COM - Minister of Health of Kazakhstan Elzhan Birtanov commented on the arrest of a well-known surgeon Gani Kuttymuratov, who is suspected of illegal transplantation of organs, InformBureau reports. "We know him as a very highly skilled doctor, and I do not have any claims to him as a doctor. During the medical tourism when foreign citizens came to Kazakhstan, we did not hinder it. On the contrary, we were greeting that we are developing a medical tourism and foreigners are performing operations, including organ transplantation," Birtanov said at the meeting of the staff of the Ministry.
He said that the case is being investigated by law enforcement bodies, and therefore, the Ministry do not know any details. Meanwhile, he said there are facts of illegal organ transplantation.
According to him, there are problems in transplantation in Kazakhstan. If a person during life did not refuse being a donor, then after death his organs can be removed. In medicine, this is called a presumption of consent. However, relatives are often against.
Relatives often interfere and they prohibit. If organs are removed, they were complaining, launching probes, because of their disagreement, the Minister noted.
However, no wish of relatives is required, because they do not have rights to organs of the deceased, he added.
The Interior Ministry has not yet provided any information about the case. In the press service, the Ministry says that the employees of the Interior Ministry and the National Security Committee suppressed activities of transnational crime group, which was illegally smuggling human organs.
The well-known doctor Gani Kuttymuratov was arrested on May 1, 2019. The probe was launched into participation in transnational crime group and illegal transplantation of organs and tissues of a human.