SHE went to India looking for a kidney transplant.

When she came back, the New Zealand woman in her 30s got more than what she wanted.

The kidney transplant also gave her hepatitis B and she died of acute liver failure shortly after returning home, reported the New Zealand Herald.

Another middle-aged man who had a kidney transplant abroad, returned with a severely infected wound and a non-functioning kidney.

These are some of the worst known cases of New Zealanders who travel to China, Pakistan and India for potentially life-saving transplants.

They are known to fork out up to NZ$100,000 ($103,000) on the international black market for organs as New Zealand has one of the lowest organ donor rates in the world.

But Auckland kidney specialist Ian Dittmer said they often returned with serious medical complications.

To solve the problem, his colleague, Auckland transplant surgeon Stephen Munn, has suggested the government provide an incentive of between NZ$5,000 to NZ$10,000 for donors.

But Dr Dittmer is worried that this would encourage the poor and desperate to sell their organs.

There are also the lucky ones - a woman in her 20s had a successful kidney transplant in China, but of course, the risk of getting an infected organ is very huge.

APPALLED

Dr Dittmer and Dr Dunn told New Zealand Herald of a man in his 20s who went to Pakistan with his mother but cancelled her kidney transplant because he was so appalled by the set-up.

Dr Munn said patients paid between NZ$70,000 and NZ$100,000 for organs but warned against the practice.

'People get coerced into giving organs, there's organ trafficking - it's horrendous.'

New Zealand's dead donor rate is six per million people. In Britain, it is 10.5 and in Spain, 33.8.

There are about 570 New Zealanders waiting for a kidney, while another 38 require other organs. Last year, there were only 38 dead donors and 62 living donors.

Dr Munn predicted the kidney waiting list could reach 1,000 within a decade as diabetes continued to rise and people lived longer. Medical advances will reduce the pool of dead donors, he said.

'There will be pressure put on friends and relatives and acquaintances in the future because there's such a big waiting list.'

Dr Munn argued the only options were to ration organs or provide a financial incentive for live donors to volunteer.

He pointed to Iran where the government and private organisations paid live kidney donors and there was no waiting list.

This article was first published in The New Paper on July 14, 2008.