Someone ought to have told a leading NHS surgeon to beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Kings Cross surgeons must have realised that by selling organs to the highest bidder they’d be opening their own ‘Trojan Horse’.
How can Kings Cross hospital be indifferent to the plight of around 400 UK nationals who are in desperate need for liver transplants?
The simple answer is money. The Mail on Sunday has discovered surgeons at the London hospital have struck a deal with the Greek and Cypriot governments to treat the patients privately. The hospital earns around £85,000 per operation, from which the surgeon’s fee is deducted.
Professor Nigel Heaton, 53, who makes the final decision on which patients he operates on, has earned up to £100,000 from five such operations in the past year on top of his NHS salary of between £150,000 and £200,000.
Heaton is never far from controversy. In July 2002 the transplant surgeon decided to give a transplant to
alcoholic and former Manchester United football star George Best. Kings Cross surgeons are paid about £20,000 for each operation they carry out.
There is a worldwide shortage of donor organs. In Britain about 400 people are waiting for a new liver – 20% of whom will die before a suitable organ can be found.
