Dr. Swarup Mishra, the founder of Mediheal Group of Hospitals, has firmly denied allegations that Kenyan kidneys were trafficked out of the country. He maintained that all foreign patients who underwent transplants at Mediheal arrived in Kenya with their own donors.
“No Kenyan organ has ever been exported, none at all,” Dr. Mishra emphasized. “Every foreign transplant patient came with a donor they knew beforehand.”
He also distanced the hospital from any unethical practices surrounding organ donation. “Mediheal does not take part in selecting donors, nor do we engage in transactions, exert pressure, offer bribes, or commercialize the process in any way,” he said. “We don’t even suggest potential donors to patients.”
Dr. Mishra issued the statement in response to a scathing government taskforce report, which examined 476 kidney transplants performed at Mediheal between 2018 and 2024. The hospital came under fire in the report for breaking transplant laws and recommended that the authorities prosecute Dr. Mishra and three other senior doctors.
Dr. Mishra staunchly defended the integrity of Mediheal’s transplant procedures, asserting that all the surgeries were in accordance with the law and had been approved by the Ministry of Health.
“Eligible candidates for renal transplant include patients referred by relatives or friends, and in-house kidney patients from our hospital,” he clarified. “A complete workup is performed to confirm if a patient is a true candidate, because some cases might be reversible dialysis.”
He went on to explain that all patients must provide their own donors, who then undergo a comprehensive medical screening process alongside the transplant recipients.
“Once brought by the patient, donors undergo a comprehensive workup to ensure compatibility,” Dr. Mishra explained. “This includes cross-matching, HLA typing, and gene mapping, which are essential to minimize or eliminate post-transplant rejection.”
Mishra Shares Mediheal’s Track Record
To back Mediheal’s track record, Dr. Mishra shared data showing that out of the 476 kidney transplants performed at the hospital, only 20 were rejected, significantly lower than the global average rejection rate of 20 percent.
“Of those 20 rejections, seven were acute and 13 were chronic,” he said. “We successfully rescued eight of those cases, so in the end, only 12 transplants failed. Importantly, we haven’t lost a single donor, all donors are alive and well.”
Dr. Mishra also addressed concerns about transplant-related deaths.
“Patient mortality for kidney transplants at our facility is 8 out of 476 cases,” he noted. “We define transplant-related mortality as death occurring within one month of surgery. Deaths occurring after two, three, or ten years are natural and unrelated to the transplant.”
Dr. Mishra dismissed the taskforce report as malicious and baseless, accusing it of damaging the hospital’s reputation without presenting credible evidence.
“This report is harmful to the integrity of our hospital,” he said. “The claims are entirely unfounded and not supported by any credible evidence.”
He underscored the openness and high ethical standards of Mediheal. “We have nothing to hide.”
Dr. Mishra also revealed that the hospital had issued a legal notice to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle over what he described as false claims in a documentary that sparked the taskforce investigation.
“We will cooperate with all relevant authorities,” he stated. “And if any wrongdoing is found, we are ready to face the consequences but we reject the lies and defamation.”
