He sold 7.5cm of his liver and "life is better now"

He sold 7.5cm of his liver and "life is better now" Jul 29, 2008 The Straits Times BY: Mavis Toh

Mr Salimudin, pictured with his family here, says life is better now.

He still thinks he had sold 7.5cm of his heart, but it was actually his liver he had parted with.

But whichever organ it was, Mr Salimudin, 27, does not mind.

The sale made him richer by 300 million rupiah (S$44,600) and he is now the proud owner of a 5,000 sq m palm tree plantation.

'I have my own plantation now, life is better,' he said.

The Sunday Times spoke to Mr Salimudin at his house in Kampong Tanah Putus, Galang, last Monday. It is a single-storey zinc-roofed structure with cement floors, simply furnished with a TV set.

In 2002, the then 21-year-old was jailed for three months for a series of housebreaking crimes in his hometown, Galang.

Two weeks after he was released from prison, he was approached by a group of men from Medan looking for organ donors.

They said they worked for a man who owned a fabric company in Medan, and asked him to help them recruit people who would donate their organs.

When he could not find a suitable donor among his family and friends, he volunteered himself.

The then bachelor was broke and without a job.

When asked which organ he sold, Mr Salimudin pointed to his chest and said in Bahasa Indonesia: 'Heart.'

He then dug out two photographs which he got from the doctor who did the operation in Singapore. They show the organ - his liver, actually - that was taken, which measured about 7.5cm in length.

The Sunday Times later contacted the doctor who performed the surgery, Dr Tan Kai Chah. Better known as Dr K.C. Tan, he had performed actress Andrea De Cruz's liver transplant here in 2002.

He confirmed that Mr Salimudin had donated a part of his liver in 2002. In fact, it was one of the early adult living donor liver transplants performed in Singapore, he said.

Mr Salimudin's offer was quickly taken up by the men and he was sent for tests at the Rumah Sakit Gleneagles in Medan. His blood, type B, matched that of a patient who was looking for a liver transplant.

In June 2002, without his parents' knowledge, he was flown to Singapore for the operation at the Gleneagles Hospital.

He said he was told to say that the recipient of his liver, an Indonesian man he knows only as Mr Samsul, was his uncle.

'We went to the Indonesian Embassy and declared that Samsul was my uncle.'

At the hospital later, in front of about 10 doctors and medical professionals, Mr Salimudin made the same declaration. That was the first time he met Mr Samsul, then 67.

When asked about the case, Dr Tan said in an e-mail reply: 'On June 15, 2002, Salimudin donated part of his liver to his uncle from Medan.' He declined further comment on the case, citing patient confidentiality.

According to Mr Salimudin, he was coached by a Singaporean middleman called 'Chin Chin' on how to behave in front of the officials.

Chin Chin, he said, was a short, bespectacled Chinese man, about 45 years old and who speaks Malay.

He added: 'He taught me what to say to all the doctors and he took care of me while I was in Singapore.'

After the operation, Mr Samsul spent three months in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Gleneagles Hospital. Mr Salimudin was out of the ICU in three days and stayed in a normal ward for four nights.

When he was discharged, Chin Chin checked him into a room at the Mandarin Hotel in Orchard Road, where he stayed for a month to recuperate.

'I had bags of medicine with me at the hotel and I went back to Gleneagles for a check-up during the month,' he said.

After that, he was flown home to Galang and returned to Singapore two months later for a check-up - all paid for by Mr Samsul. He stayed at the ANA Hotel in Nassim Hill for a week.

'The first few weeks after the operation, I got tired easily,' said Mr Salimudin. 'But now, I am fit and I can run and work, no problem.'

He added that he went back to smoking just three months after his operation.

According to Dr Tan, liver donors face a 0.1 per cent to 0.3 per cent chance of death and a 15 per cent chance of complications such as pain, bleeding and infection.

'Fortunately, most of the young donors will recover and be back to their normal vocations and hobbies within two to three months,' he said.

Today, Mr Salimudin is healthy and married with two young sons. The well-built man was cheerful and friendly, and smoked at least five cigarettes during the hour-long interview.

He is also a businessman. With the 300 million rupiah he got - a sum labourers in Galang would take decades to earn - he bought the palm tree plantation.

'My friends see what I have and they also want to sell their organs,' he said.

He added that whenever there is a need for organs, the 'people from Medan' still descend onto the kampungs of Galang to seek out potential donors.

He sometimes introduces his friends to them. 'They are a little scared and unsure, but they still want to sell,' he said. 'Usually their kidneys.'

He claims to have no regrets in selling his organ, which he still thinks is his heart.

When asked if he would consider selling his kidney, he smiled and said: 'I'll think about it.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 27, 2008.