Doctors at a hospital in Iran refused to perform an operation on a patient woman, only because of the possibility of her being an Afghan.
According to Jahan-e Eghtesad newspaper, doctors at the so-called ‘Imam Khomeini’ hospital in Tehran have refused to perform liver transplant on a patient due to ‘suspicion of the patient being Afghan’.
Regarding the patient’s nationality, Jahan-e Eghtesad has quoted the nephew of the 35-year old woman as saying that “we are your fellow border residents and tribespeople from Sistan and Baluchestan province. It’s now quite a few years that we are residing in the city of Gonbad in Golestan province. After a long time of our uncle’s wife suffering from liver problems, we came to Tehran on the advice of doctors to have a liver transplant in this hospital. All necessary tests and preparations were carried out, but now that the operation was about to be performed, the surgeon refused to operate at the last minute and our patient was returned from the operating room to the ward, with the only reason, according to the doctor himself, being that the patient had no birth certificate and that they believe we are Afghans, whereas everyone knows that we are one of Iranian border residing tribes, and the patient herself has moved from Sistan and Baluchestan to Gonbad nearly 35 years ago.”
Patient’s husband has presented documents and forensic confirmation showing that his wife is Iranian, and even additional documents showing that their ancestors are also Iranian. He said that in addition to having Iranian driving licenses, they’re following the procedure to obtain their Iranian birth certificates.
According to a nurse working at the gastroenterology department of ‘Imam Khomeini Hospital’, “according to the law, transplanting Iranian organs into non-Iranians is not allowed.” A law referred to as “sheer racism” by Jahan-e Eghtesad correspondent.
According to Iran newspaper, arguing that the issue of organ transplant “had created an unhealthy market in the country which severely misrepresented Iran in other countries and had too many consequences for our country”, regime’s Minister of Health and Medical Education ‘Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi’ had announced that only in exceptional cases and with the permission of the Ministry of Health are foreign nationals allowed to receive transplant.
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