The authorities released the testimony of a 62-year-old woman, who was the one who filed the complaint on May 22, 2022, whose name was omitted.
According to the authorities, the woman arrived at a health center in the country to undergo an operation that she required, after they detected a medullary fibroma, which had to be removed. However, days later, she felt that something strange with her operation, so she returned to where she was operated on for review.
Read also: Four doctors are captured for illegal removal of a kidney
The hospital authorities gave her another diagnosis, which left her confused, when they pointed out that they did not remove the medullary fibroma, but that they had removed a kidney, without her consent.
“I felt discomfort after the intervention, and that is why I returned to be checked out”the woman denounced before the Public Ministry.
Prosecutor Alexander Colop, head of the MP’s Prosecutor’s Office against Trafficking in Persons, indicated that this case of organ removal constitutes the first, documented with scientific evidence, that occurs in Guatemala.
OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT pic.twitter.com/74g4vxTRvH
– College of Physicians and Surgeons of Guatemala (@_COLMEDEGUA) March 4, 2023
doctors sympathize
On social networks, the doctors were joined by other colleagues, who gave details of what could have happened to the organ. An example was the account of Napoleón Méndez GT who explained the following:
“Trade in organs???. What terrible accusations and discredit these colleagues. I don’t know the details, but I will illustrate: 1. If the organ was analyzed by a pathologist, it rules out any possibility of its use in another human being. 2. The protocol for donor and recipient is slow, meticulous and highly protocolized. Histocompatibility tests, infectious, etc. The time between extraction and implantation is strict and measured in time as well as laborious and complex. Don’t think it’s like buying seafood, putting it on ice AND cooking it…”
Add: “3. It is understood that the indication for surgery was a problem in the adrenal glands that rest on the kidney. This causes a potential risk of drying out the organ. If there is any medical or technical error, it will be investigated and judged. from this to organ trafficking. There is a huge difference. Let’s hope that everything is cleared up and although in this country it is an illusion, justice will be done.”
While the College of Physicians and Surgeons through a statement requested that due process and the presumption of innocence be respected.
“The Legal Advisor of the Board of Directors was ordered to intervene promptly in order to obtain the legal status of these members, determining that the four members have a defense attorney,” says the statement.
