A DIALYSIS patient, who paid just under £10,000 to have a kidney transplant from a living donor in Pakistan, is calling for changes to the organ donor system.

The poor-to-rich organ trade in commercial transplants is on the increase, says Martin Farr, who favours an opt-out system for donation in the UK.

Mr Farr, 55, intends to find the 25-year-old donor who he fears will have received less than £1,000 from the payment to the hospital in Lahore for the operation carried out on December 11, 2006.

Pakistan is an international centre for organ transplant where this trade is legal.

In September, after three years of dialysis, Mr Farr began to concentrate on the idea of commercial transplant, which is illegal in the UK.

He carried out extensive research and spoke to ex-patients in the UK who gave positive references. In December the Pakistan hospital told him he should travel as soon as possible as a judicial review of the kidney transplant system was imminent.

Within days he flew alone to Pakistan, having informed his NHS doctors.

He said: "The payment to the donor is the weakness in the system. Recipients cannot offer gifts and the payment is inadequate. I know his name, but the rest was highly secretive, although the hospital did confirm that he was well after the operation.

"The hospital was a little bit primitive, but all the standard tests were carried out, staff were very attentive and the doctors were good."

The annual increase in renal failure is 90 per cent and Mr Farr feels the Human Tissue Act, passed last September, will not re-dress the widening gap between organ supply and demand.

"The present system is costly, onerous and wasteful with a shortage of trained surgeons, support nurses and organ donations."

He said: "Maintaining patients on dialysis, 30% to 40% of whom are eligible for a transplant, does not make financial sense and is difficult for most patients."

He said: "You sit attached to a machine for up to five hours at a time, possibly three times a week. Patients tire and general health suffers and the heart is at risk. I felt I had to take the opportunity that was presented for a transplant abroad."

The operation went well, but a serious fall in the hospital afterwards left Mr Farr with a large open wound which required immediate treatment on his return to England on December 28. He was taken straight to the Accident and Emergency ward at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, Wonford, then transferred to an isolation section in Creedy ward, where he stayed for two weeks before being moved to Sidmouth's Victoria Cottage Hospital, under the care of Doctor Duncan Hall.

"The nursing attention has been exemplary since my return," he said.

Mr Farr, who was discharged on Tuesday, says his kidney function has not been compromised and shows steady improvement. He suffered from Glomerulonephritis, a kidney disease which could have been brought on by lithium therapy he had been prescribed for over 23 years to manage a bi-polar disorder.

"I feel confident about my new kidney. I will have to be screened for about six months to see if it is taking, but so far the blood tests look good.