Sunday Star Times

Kiwi body parts are also exported. New Zealand has traded livers, hearts, skin, bone, cord blood and bone marrow with countries including Australia, the United States, Britain, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany.

Hospitals pay for the body parts with the public purse, but do not make a profit on the trading, which would be illegal.

Payments cover travel and medical expenses and donors are not paid.

A Sunday Star-Times inquiry has revealed $55,555 of skin was bought from Texas last year, and $300,000 has been spent this year importing bone marrow and cord blood from America, Australia and Britain to treat people with blood disorders such as leukaemia.

Two Kiwis have saved the lives of two foreigners after their marrow was exported overseas for $30,000 each because they were the only known matches in the world.

Experts involved in the body-part trade say multiple medical checks are carried out to ensure the parts are as disease-free and healthy as possible before transplants.

Checks are made for HIV, hepatitis and cancer.

Donors' lifestyles are assessed and people are excluded if, for example, they have injected drugs.

Sperm donors' blood is checked before they donate and again six months later for any illness. The sperm is quarantined for six months.

New Zealand hospitals import body parts from reputable organisations only and have no connection with any international black-market organ trade.

The director of Middlemore Hospital's burns unit, Dr Stephen Mills, said three metres of skin was imported from Texas in October because there was not enough cadaver skin for burns victims and patients with diseases such as meningococcal disease. About 1sq m of skin is needed for someone with 50% burns.

"We had outstripped our resources," said Mills. "It was a mercy dash."

National Transplant Donor Co-ordination Office spokeswoman Janice Langlands said New Zealand had a "sharing" arrangement with Australia, where costs were charged.

If an organ is sent on a commercial flight the cost is minimal but, if a flight has to be chartered - heart and lungs can be stored for only six hours - costs can rise to $40,000.

Since 1989, New Zealand has sent 199 livers to Australia and since 1992 this country has sent 20 hearts and 32 lungs there.

In 2002, one heart was sent from Australia and since 2000 New Zealand has received 40 Australian livers.

"We've got small numbers on the waiting lists so if there's not a match here and a match in Australia, we offer it to them," said Langlands.

In New Zealand there are nine people needing liver transplants and 370 people waiting for other organs, mostly kidneys.

Langlands said relatives were told when a loved one's body part was exported and Kiwis knew when they were receiving organs from overseas.

Middlemore Hospital orthopaedic surgeon Garnet Tregonning said in the past bones had been imported from Australia when there was a shortage for hip replacements and fractures.

NZ Bone Marrow Donor Registry spokeswoman Raewyn Fisher has helped Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch hospitals bring in international bone marrow 10 times this year.

A further four searches are under way, meaning more bone marrow is set to be imported this year than any other.

Twelve lots of bone marrow were imported last year, six donations came in during 2002 and nine in 2001.

Fisher said the overseas bone marrow and cord blood cost $15,000-$30,000 each time and New Zealand hospitals charged about the same to export.

IVF provider Fertility Associates does not pay for sperm from overseas donors, but clinical director Richard Fisher said in recent years up to 20 patients had bought sperm, for an unknown price, from a Californian sperm bank.

"These were lesbian women or older women who couldn't afford to wait for a donor," said Fisher.

He said it was a good option as the genetic fathers could be found from this bank and strict donor medical checks were done.

Fisher said there was an increasing shortage of sperm in New Zealand because sperm-donor recruitment criteria changed about a decade ago from taking sperm "from any man who's healthy" to taking sperm only from men who were prepared to be tracked by their genetic children.

About 100 women nationwide are facing a wait of three months to a year for a sperm donor.

Nationally, about two women a year import sperm, mostly from Australia and the UK, from men who have previously fathered one of their children. This enabled the siblings to be more closely related, said Fisher.