A leading Canberra doctor says healthy Australians should be allowed to sell their organs to those waiting for transplant operations.
The government and medical groups have rejected the controversial idea, saying it would exploit the vulnerable
But Canberra doctor Gavin Carney says drastic measures are needed to save lives because the current system is not working.
“It’s not working particularly for my patients,” he told a news conference in the ACT.
“I have patients who are coming onto dialysis relatively fit, relatively young, staying on dialysis for a protracted period of time and at the end of that they either die or they’re so unfit they’re untreatable anyway.
"The cadaveric kidney donation system doesn't work. Efforts to improve that have been notoriously weak and have failed.
"In my mind we need to reconsider the entire program and become a little bit more practical and a little bit more pragmatic."
But Organ transplant groups have rejected calls for healthy people to be able to sell their organs to desperate patients.
Kidney Australia Director Dr Tim Matthews says allowing people to charge up to $50,000 for their body parts would only attract the poor and desperate.
“The only people who put their hands up to do this will be those who are desperate,” he claimed.
“We think that’s unfair, particularly [because] there’s no precedent for trading in body parts in Australia - it’s against our culture.”
There are currently some 1,800 people on the waiting list for a kidney but Australian laws prevent buying and selling organs.
LIVENEWS.com.au will bring you video from Dr Carney's news conference shortly.