Discussion Paper on Kidney Transplant Shortage

Requirement

Question: Should Canada allow a private market for kidneys to alleviate the kidney transplant shortage? Evaluate the economic efficiency of such a policy. Evaluate the equity. Is Canada’s experience likely to be the same or different from the experiences of other countries?

Solution

Introduction

Kidney diseases are an increasing alarm in all the economies around the world. There are various types of diseases that are causing a failure or damage of kidney in adults as well as young population. According to the world statistics the percentage of population that are affected by chronic kidney diseases stands out to be 10 percent (cihi 2017). Among this percentage most of them are seen to die due to lack of proper treatment and timely transplantation of kidney. In the statistics it is seen that the people of affluent countries receive better treatment for kidney failure compared to that of developing countries. However, the scenario is different when it comes to one of the developed countries of the world that is Canada as people in this country has to travel to far regions to get their treatment done. This is because of lack of kidney market in the country. The statistics of Canada in relation to kidney failure is also severe as it is seen that since 2014 about 35,281 citizens of Canada are affected by end-stage kidney diseases (kidneycancercanada, 2017). Moreover, in 2017 more than 6000 Canadians are said to have diagnosed with kidney cancer. According to health expert the chances of increase in kidney cancer in the world market is 22 percent (kidneycancercanada, 2017). This will further worsen the situation. Canada’s situation is becoming worse due to lack of kidney transplant market within the country. 
The essay highlights the need of a kidney market in Canada and to alleviate the shortage of kidney transplants in the region. While doing this it will critically evaluate the economic efficiency of having a kidney market and compare the result of other countries that have a legal kidney market. 
Thesis statement: is there a need for private market for kidney in Canada to get rid of the shortage of kidney transplant and whether there is an economic efficiency attached behind the kidney transplant market. 

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Discussion

Americans are one of the most severely affected place in the world were population is dying at an increasing rate due to lack of kidney transplant facilities. Even though America is one of the most affluent economies in the world, yet there are premature death of individuals due to proper kidney market. This leads to a sufferance of about forty percent of the people that are facing sever kidney damage or failure. Even though the economy has the most advanced technology which could play a great role in kidney transplantation, yet they are unable to perform their task efficiently because of lack of kidneys available for transplant. Thus, the sole reason that lie behind the failure of such technology is the absence of kidney market. The market for kidney never grew up in America as it is considered as a criminal act to sell or purchase organs according to the National Organ Transplant Act 1984 (National Kidney Foundation, 2015). 
Similar kind of problem is also faced in one of the countries of North America that is Canada. This is because there is lack of kidney transplantation facilities in this country and thus, people have to travel long distances and even overseas to get their kidney transplanted. There are also cases stating that as kidney donation is considered as illegal in Canada, people also travel to donate or sell their kidney in black market of overseas countries. The population of Canada is travelling to various places such as India, Pakistan and even Philippines to get their kidney transplanted. However, the experience of travelling overseas to get their kidney transplanted has not been so good as the patients fall ill again by the time they come back home (National Kidney Foundation, 2015). Despite of such experience, the patients in Canada does not have any option than to travel as there is no scope of organ transplant in their country.There are various reports that states that Canada should get involved in bringing kidney transplantation. This is because there are various benefits attached to kidney market in the country. As it is seen that the percentage of kidney diseases is increasing in the country in a great way, this is making it necessary that Canada has its own kidney market to help the patients to save their cost and life. Transplantation benefits two types of persons, one is the patients and other to the economy. This is because, due to availability of organs patients will be able to take up good treatment increase their survival rate. Thus, kidney market will help in increasing the survival rate among the patients suffering from end-stage kidney diseases. In case of the economy, proper treatment and increasing the survival rate among the patients will in turn increase the ability of the affected person to work. This will help in increasing the gross domestic product of the economy. From a survey conducted by the Kidney Foundation of Canada it is seen that 1000 patients are unable to work due to severe kidney problem. Thus, with their cure the patients will be able to increase their contribution to GDP by $50 million (ctvnews, 2013). Canada has been able to receive such benefits already as the country has been able to recover from the deceased donation rate by 29 percent in 2015. Along with such benefits there are also various negative impacts attached with increasing percentage of kidney market in the country. It has been successfully argued by Brennan & Otero (2015) that market for kidney also leads to various negative impact. This is because, there are many people that are unwilling to donate their kidneys, and they get involved in illegal selling of kidneys for their own benefits. This worsen the situation further because poor people are still deprived of such organs as they are unable to pay for it. Thus, even with the market the shortage still persists. This leads to a rise in black marketing where people get involved in marketing their kidney in black and at higher costs to the patients in order to get their living. This is mostly done by poor people as they know that they will be able to survive even with one organ. Moreover, a private market for kidney will lead to an excessive increase in the price of the kidney that the poor people will be unable to purchase it. Thus, even with proper private market for kidney there will be a lot of loopholes that would be need government interventions. However, it has also been Cherry (2015), that the problems that are coming up due to kidney sale can be reduced by proper regulations, policy and subsidy to the poor people. However, increasing kidney transplantation rate is necessary for any country. It has been further argued by Malmqvist (2015) that a market for kidney also has significant risks attached to it. This is because many people get involved in such sale just to feed their family and to earn a lot of money, which risks the life of the people. There are many people that consider kidney sale to jobs that are dangerous. According to them kidney market can also be developed similar to that of dangerous jobs. However, risking the life of human by giving up an organ is much riskier than doing a dangerous job as it involves some kinds of protection. 
There are also evidences of other countries that has adopted the organ selling market in their country such as India, Iran, Pakistan, China and others. Among these countries some of them ae doing well in kidney market while others are facing negative impacts on the society and on the economy. Iran is one of the country that has made kidney donation a legal market and follows a unique system that helps them to allow payment for kidney donors. This is because they understand that a person will never give their organ for free to the other and thus, they openly allow payment for organs. Even though there has been critics that warned the country to stop the payment system for kidney, yet the system is working well. This, has helped the country to not only get rid of patients that were waiting to get their kidney transplanted, it also helped them to get rid of black marketing for organs (NOROOZI, 2016). Thus, the unique payment system in Iran has helped in reducing the black marketing and much negative impact that is prevalent in other organ selling countries such as India, Pakistan and others. Thus, countries like Canada are suggested to have a system like Iran to set up their kidney market as it will help in increasing the benefit and reducing the cons. 
On the other hand India and Pakistan that has a well-developed organ selling market has created various negative impact on the economy. By allowing kidney selling in Pakistan has led put many lives at risk because the economy has abundance of poverty which forces the people to set off their kidney at even low price. The economy has also passed Transplantation of Human Organs Act in 1994; however, the act did not paved its way in improving the situation in the country (Canadian Blood Services, 2016). The market for kidney did not work successfully in Pakistan as it is still considered as an illegal activity. This, forces many people to take up such illicit trade for money. Similar situation is prevalent in India which also has increasing rate of poverty. Kidney selling is considered as organ trafficking in India and has been running successfully since 12 years (National Kidney Foundation, 2015). Such trafficking has led to many scandal and loss of lives of people that do not want to get involved in such business. Moreover, kidneys are sold at such high cost in these countries that it has reduced the availability of organs to only rich people, making the poor people more deprived. In Pakistan the rate at which kidney is sold to foreigners by poor people only for their living is $38,000. However, the people involved in such trafficking pays only 10 percent of this amount to the donor. This has led to further worse situation in these regions. This is because as the money gets over and the people are unable to work due to one kidney, finds it more difficult to survive with their kids (HAIDER, 2017). At that time they needs help from the government to survive. Thus, the situation of Kidney market is poor in such developing nations. Such kind of circumstances are prevalent in Pakistan and India because of the absence of proper system in kidney market. The economy failed to come up with a particular policy and system before carrying out kidney selling in these countries. Thus, the kidney market did not seem to be that successful in these countries as it is in Iran. This is because Iran has adopted kidney selling as a legal market, thus, people does not need to get involved in illegal activities to get paid for their kidney. It is recommended that in order to move forward with a private kidney market, Canada should first implement a specific system that can be beneficial both for the donors as well as for the patients. Along with this, a market for kidney also has some economic efficiencies for the country that adopts it. However, there can be some loopholes in it as the market for kidney may not be equitable for all sections of the society. The main reason for the inability of Americans to get their kidney transplanted is the unavailability of transplantable kidneys. Such unavailability exists both in selling and purchasing of kidney. Thus, economist view that in order to increase the sale and purchase of kidney in the country, it is necessary to make it a legal market. However, it should be realized that even with such legal market, there will be some percentage of insufficiency. It has been successfully stated that prohibition of kidney sale in the economy will result in increasing death rate and suffering (Canadian Blood Services, 2016). In order to decide whether to build a market for kidney or not it is necessary to know the economic efficiency and equitability that will result due to such market. There are two types of shortage that exists in the kidney market such as medical shortage and economic shortage. Canada specially faces economic shortage rather than medical shortage. This is because being a developed country it has all the technology that is needed for kidney transplantation (First et al., 2017). However, there is no kidney market or donor in the country which leads to economic shortage. Thus, a free market for kidney is said to solve both the economic and medical shortages for kidney. To come across economic efficiency it is necessary to consider the demand and supply curve of kidney. It is seen that the demand curve of the kidney is downward sloping, while supply curve of kidney is upward sloping. This is because the demand and supply curve are both affected by the price of the kidney in the market. It is further seen that the demand for kidney does not depends on the income of the consumer to that extent as each person would need only one kidney even if they have the money. Thus, the demand for kidney depends on the willingness to pay by the buyer. It is seen that in a free market if a price ceiling is set at zero then there is will be huge deadweight loss and loss of economic efficiency. This is because with such price ceiling the demand will increase more than the supply of kidney (First et al., 2017). Thus, creating a shortage of supply in the market. This shows that regulated market will not be an ideal situation for Canada to set up their kidney market. 
Canada can set up a kidney market for itself; however, the market should be free from all kinds of prohibition and ceiling. This is because free market the market will itself try to equate demand and supply and there will be no economic shortage. The economic benefit that the country will receive from the setting up of private market for kidney will be of various kinds such as increased GDP rate of the country, improved awareness and education, research and innovation and economic development. The first and most important economic benefit that Canada will get from the kidney market is increased rate of transplantation and healthy people that can work and help in increasing the GDP of the country. People suffering from chronic kidney failure will be able to get at least one kidney from the donors available in the market and again start working. The next economic and social benefit that a market of kidney will lead to is improved awareness among the public. The market can create some private organization that could increase the awareness of organ donation among the Canadians (Jones, 2016). Efforts can be made so that the Canadians can be made aware of getting registered to donate their organs and also influence their family to do so. The third benefit of such organ donation market is that it helps in a lot of research and development in the country. To set up the market the economy will take up extensive research to know the demand for kidney in the country. Moreover, further research will be carried out to improve the ways transplantation can take place in the medical institutions. Thus, setting up a market can lead to overall economic development in the society. The kidney for market will not help in creating an equitable society as the poor will still be deprived of getting the kidney in the private market due to high price. This will leave them deprived of any kind of treatment in such a market. However, it will help the poor to get proper price for their kidney if they want to sell in these private companies. The chances of black marketing will get lowered and people will not have to travel overseas to get their treatment done. Equity situation in such a market is difficult; however, there will be some growth in the economy as the poor will no more be exploited in the black marketing (Canadian Blood Services, 2016). To help the poor in getting kidney for transplantation there will be need of some intervention by the government so that it can offer subsidy to the private market to offer kidney to the poor at low price. 

Conclusion 

From the above analysis it can be deduced that Canada can start up their own legal private kidney market to reduce the loss of lives due to lack of kidney donation within the country. However, they can do so by opening free paid market for kidney with some government intervention such as subsidy.  It has been viewed that the percentage of kidney damage in the country has been increasing severely over the years. This has put an increasing alarm on the economy to increase their market for kidney donation. Many Canadians are seen to travel overseas and far places to get their kidney transplanted. However, by the time they come back they fall sick. Thus, it was not working for them to travel every time for the treatment due to both risk and cost factors. The markets that are already having their own kidney market is Iran, India, Pakistan and China. Iran is the only region that has a legal kidney market and has been performing well with the payment system of kidney donation. On the other hand India and Pakistan is seen to have failed in their performance due to illegal kidney selling and black marketing. Moreover, kidney market has various positive impact in the economy as well such as rise in GDP, social awareness and research and development in medical industry. Thus, it is suggested that Canada should take build their own kidney market; however, in a legal way like Iran and reduce the chances of black marketing and organ trafficking that is taking place in countries like India where the market is illegal. A proper kidney market is essential in Canada along with eliminating the negative impacts. 

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References 

  • Brennan, J., & Otero, P. (2015). Debate: Should People Be Allowed to Sell Their Own Organs? PanAm Post. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://panampost.com/editor/2015/09/16/should-people-be-allowed-to-sell-their-own-organs/

  • Canadian Blood Services. (2016). Organ donation and transplantation in Canada. Blood.ca. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://blood.ca/sites/default/files/ODT_Report.pdf

  • Cherry, M. J. (2015). Kidney for sale by owner: human organs, transplantation, and the market. Georgetown University Press.

  • cihi. (2017). CORR Annual Statistics 2017 | CIHI. Cihi.ca. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.cihi.ca/en/corr-annual-statistics-2017

  • ctvnews. (2013). Canadians desperate for transplants turn to illegal organ trade. CTVNews. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/health-headlines/canadians-desperate-for-transplants-turn-to-illegal-organ-trade-1.1307227

  • First, R., Lee, D., Lewis, P., & Rose, S. (2017). An Economic Analysis of the Cost Effectiveness of Blood Gene Expression Profiling in Kidney Transplant Recipients. Journal of Health & Medical Economics, 3(1).

  • HAIDER, Z. (2017). The Poor in Pakistan’s Punjab Region Sell Kidneys For Subsistence. The Quint. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.thequint.com/news/world/sale-of-kidneys-in-pakistan-punjab

  • Jones, V. (2016). Incentivizing Live Kidney Donations: Economic Models for Policy Enhancements (Doctoral dissertation, University of Puget Sound).

  • kidneycancercanada. (2017). 2017-06-20 Shocking growth in kidney cancer rates - Kidney Cancer Canada. Kidneycancercanada.ca. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.kidneycancercanada.ca/news-plus-events/latest-news/2017-06-20-shocking-growth-in-kidney-cancer-rates/

  • Malmqvist, E. (2015). Kidney sales and the analogy with dangerous employment. Health Care Analysis, 23(2), 107-121.

  • National Kidney Foundation. (2015). Global Facts: About Kidney Disease. The National Kidney Foundation. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/global-facts-about-kidney-disease

  • NOROOZI, E. (2016). In Iran, unique system allows payments for kidney donors. STAT. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/25/organ-donation-kidneys-iran/

 

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