H

ealth Minister Nila Djuwita Anfasa Moeloek came to the defense of the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital (RSCM), saying that doctors and administrators of the hospital were unlikely tangled up in the alleged kidney harvesting case.

Speaking after a meeting with National Police detective division chief Comr. Gen. Anang Iskandar at the police headquarters in South Jakarta, Minister Nila said that RSCM was only engaged in legal kidney transplants and not in the business of selling the organ.

'€œKidney transplants are legal and conducted to help humanity. Currently, [the National Police'€™s detective division] are investigating the sale of kidneys, which is illegal [...] I don'€™t think [anyone from within RSCM] was involved,'€ Nila said.

Nila said that RSCM had met the standard operating procedures (SOP) that donors must through before undergoing an organ removal operation.

'€œAs long as it is conducted based on the SOP, then it is legal. Anything beyond that, including the sale [of organs] is illegal,'€ she said.

Last week, the National Police detained three suspects on allegations of harvesting and selling kidneys to hospitals, the practice of which is in violation of Law No. 36/2009 on health and Law No. 21/2007 on human trafficking.

The three men '€” Yana Priatna alias Amang, Dedi Supriadi bin Oman Rahman and Kwok Herry Susanto '€” stand accused of luring 15 men, mostly from poor economic backgrounds, to trade their kidneys for Rp 70 million (US$5,139).

The police have said that three hospitals in Jakarta may have been involved in the scheme. The police identified the implicated hospitals only by the initials C, C and AW.

During Thursday'€™s raids, officers confiscated documents on transplants conducted at RSCM since 2013. The National Police'€™s human trafficking unit chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Arie Dharmanto, also said that 14 of the victims had undergone medical procedures at RSCM. However, he declined to specify whether the procedures were preliminary examinations or the kidney removal surgeries themselves.

Separately, RSCM president director CH Soejono vehemently denied that any of the hospital'€™s doctors were involved in the alleged organ trafficking ring.

Soejono said that even though patients themselves had to find their own donors, the hospital had strict screening procedures in place.

'€œWe do our best to prevent [organ sales]. We have a hospital screening service called the Kidney Transplant Advocate Team with a forensic psychiatrist, kidney expert, a medico-legal and other physicians as members,'€ he said on Friday during a press briefing.

Soejono said that around 30 percent of donor applicants were rejected because their medical test results did not match their statements during initial interviews.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) secretary-general Adib Khumaidi said that he had not received any reports on organ harvesting by doctors in Indonesia.

'€œUntil now, we haven'€™t received any reports so we have done [every procedure] in accordance to the existing SOP,'€ he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Following his meeting with Nila, Anang said that investigators handling the case were only doing their job.

'€œWe respect the medical profession because it is a legal [profession]. Our investigators are looking into illegal activity,'€ Anang said.