The Hindu Business Line : Commerce takes a painful route for those too poor to care

STORY so far: The company organises a short training programme to get us onto the takeover groove. Zakhir, the consultant, takes us through the nuances of finding the right firms, scanning the horizon and, most of all, valuing time. I shed my worry about how companies of different cultures can merge, and learn that weak management is a sure invitation for takeover, especially if its assets are otherwise good.

Episode 61

I don't remember why or how I got the idea but, as a routine practice, I accompany my colleagues in customer support and market research to visit labs, doctors and hospitals where the company's products are used. Normally, one does not find an accountant or company secretary stirring out of his or her cabin or the boardroom, but that ends up giving a too narrow view of things. Believe it or not, when I return from field visits, as I call them, and study a voucher file or boss's correspondence with the department heads, things appear in a different light.

One cannot but feel sad when seeing the many businesses around which can do with a little more attention from the executives who rather prefer to sit in their ivory towers.

Well, it was during one such outing that I came across Swapan. He is about 60, working as a watchman in an apartment block. But he was lying in a hospital bed, writhing and moaning. I had gone to the hospital with a research analyst to find out how our drug for diabetics was faring.

The duty doctor told us the story of how Swapan had fallen a prey in the rampant kidney trade. I looked at Swapan angrily, and asked him if he was mad to give off a vital organ for the sake of money. "Don't you know there is this legislation called the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994? It is illegal if the donor does not have affection or attachment towards the recipient! Did you get the permission of an Authorisation Committee set up by the State?"

The old watchman looked at me calmly, in spite of his pain, and said, "I needed the money to arrange for my daughter's marriage. And there was no other option but this." That was reality staring at the face and all my righteous outburst was just as powerless as a whimper.

*********

"Swati," said the R&D chief whom I met that afternoon. "Treatment for diabetics is expensive. Renal failure is not considered a public health priority. Only then will we have low cost dialysis."

I queried, "Tax cuts can help, won't they?" He nodded, "You're right, Swati. Customs duties and taxes on kits for dialysis must go. But aren't we happier when they reduce duty for VCDs and air-conditioners?"

I remembered my first lesson in economics: scarcity of resources pushes up the price. "You can't teach philosophy to an empty stomach," continued my senior. "Nor can you stuff law down their gullets instead of roti. Is there anything you can do about it?"

I looked at him and said: "We can bring down the cost of production of the drugs we make and pass on the benefit to the consumers rather than to the shareholders as hefty dividend." Not a popular idea, I realised, from the way his eyebrows shot up. But I told myself that I should study soon what avenues existed to cut costs. That much, at least, I owed to the society as an accountant.

*********

It was about 11 p.m. and I was still tossing in my bed, struggling to find sleep. I knew what was bugging my mind, so sat at the PC to find out more about the illegal trade in human organs from the Net. Over the next few hours, I learnt how Iran legalised organ sale, while here they were doing it clandestinely.

In South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, organ trade happened in the garb of medical tourism. On the demand side for kidneys, one could plot an estimated two-lakh patients with renal failure who die each year, but there are one lakh fresh cases getting added. With hypertension on the rise, this number would surely go up.

It was about 3 a.m. when I decided to venture out to a popular hospital nearby. "I have an aunt whom I have to admit for renal failure, and she needs a transplant," I said at the reception, as if I had gone there to find out the procedure.

Even as the staff obliged me with the information, a stocky chap came up to me to tell me that the treatment would be expensive. "Yes, I am aware of that," I said. "But cost is no problem." That should have acted as a bait for him, because he played by my script. I had read how for those able to pay for a transplant, the first point of contact at some private hospitals is a broker offering to procure kidneys from unrelated donors.

He beckoned me to a corner in the lobby where he said, "Do you have a blood relative to donate?" I shook my head and he resumed, "Don't worry. For fifty, I can get you a good one." Not fifty rupees, but fifty thousand, I knew. "You meet me at 6 a.m. and I can take you to the donor," he said. I agreed.

*********

I spoke to Narendra, ACP, whom I knew from my earlier experience in crime-trailing, and told him about the dawn story. "Okay," he said, after chiding me for not keeping quiet. He went on to give me instructions: "I will leave with you a bundle of currency notes in an envelope. You give that to your broker as `advance' and tell him you must see the deal through."

*********

Crooks too are punctual. So I didn't waste time and followed Narendra's instructions. The broker took me in his car to a slum that was not far away. Daylight was creeping in and we stopped near a hut. From my seat I could see that the broker was explaining the deal to a poor worker whose family was not far from him.

The broker had the wad of money in his hand and showing it as the price for a vital piece of body. I turned away from the scene, remembering that almost all unrelated donors sell a kidney in an attempt to escape debt or deep poverty. But in reality they get sucked into a far more debilitating cycle of ill-health and greater poverty because they suffer neglect after donation and lose the confidence to work.

My mind was on breaking the whole gang that was at this illegal business. I could see Narendra was at a teashop nearby, after having followed us in an old unmarked scooter. He was watching the happenings on and talking through a hidden mic to his men spread out on the street.

(To be continued)

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