By Joseph Erunke

Alliance Hospital, an Abuja based multi-specialty health, has denied allegation of involvement in alleged kidney transplant activities, describing report linking it to the development as not only false and biased but also malicious.

The hospital said contrary to the misleading report against it, “there is no iota of evidence of monetary transactions between the hospital, its staff and the donors or their representatives.”

In a statement by its Chief Medical Director, Dr Christopher Otabor, the hospital explained that “as a rule, kidney recipients source for their donors and present them to the hospital for screening for compatibility and fitness for donation.”

“After the screening, we proceed to ensure they meet the legal requirements which include that donor must be 18 years or above; donor must sign consent in the presence of two adult witnesses; donor is expected to swear an affidavit stating his age and affirming that the decision to donate is by free will and there is no compulsion or financial inducement and the relationship of the donor to the recipient,” it added.

The hospital, which was reacting to allegation linking it of engaging in unlawful kidney transplant practices, noted that, “The law governing organ transplant in Nigeria is scanty and limited in depth. “

“It only requires the donor to be above 18 years of age and the fact that there is no financial inducement for the donation. We have followed the above protocol strictly for all the kidney transplant cases done by the hospital,” it explained.

Recall that two reports titled: “Inside Abuja’s Kidney ‘Market’ Where the Rich Prey on The Poor”, and “How Abuja syndicates lured minor for kidney harvest”, were published in the media with the picture of Alliance Hospital contiguously captioned (Vanguard not inclusive.)

But reacting in the statement titled: “Campaign of Calumny Against Alliance Hospital, Dr Otabor expressed disappointment that the hospital was being targeted for blackmail even when it knows nothing about such illicit act.

Otabor said the intent and purpose of the author of the reports was to vilify Alliance Hospital.

“At first look at the headline, one would reason that the article is addressing the problem of organ sales in Nigeria but on reading through, it will become clear to any discerning reader that Alliance Hospital is the target of campaign of calumny here.

Giving a background to the hospital,he said: “Alliance Hospital in response to the huge burden of kidney failure in Nigeria and the need to develop a world class kidney transplant centre to prolong the lives of kidney failure patients decided to establish a kidney transplant unit in 2017. The program has been running successfully till date with a huge success story in its trail.

“There is no iota of evidence of monetary transactions between the hospital, its staff and the donors or their representatives. The story was vindictive, biased and an obvious vendetta against the hospital.

While we appreciate the need for investigative journalism to get to the root of societal problems, we must also be circumspect in order not to appear biased and miss the mark as they that come to equity must come with clean hands.

“From the report, it is obvious that there is an organ market out there which Alliance Hospital is not part of and can never condescend to transact in. The writer of the article obviously took a position against the hospital, pronounced a guilty verdict on it and called for punishment for the hospital without due regards to the facts.

“I encourage the medium to dig deep to unravel the key players in this trade. Alliance hospital has nothing to do with illegal organ harvesting. In the meantime we have instructed our lawyers to write the author to retract the defamatory publication against Alliance hospital within a specific period of time or face legal action,” it said.