Govt proposes amendments in Human Organ Transplant Act

After Gurgaon kidney racket kingpin Dr. Amit Kumar made many innocents poorer of their kidney, government has come up with the proposal to make desirable amendments in Human Organ Transplant Act.

This time the focus is to look into the possibilities of bringing the ‘presumed concept’ model in India, as here we follow ‘consent concept’ where consent is necessary to make the organ available for donation either by the deceased prior to death or by its relatives. While under ‘presumed concept,’ every ‘brain-dead’ person is considered as donor unless they specify.

But in India, where people are not aware to organ donation and instead face cultural reluctance to donate organs, hence introducing presumed concept in one go could create pandemonium among the people.

For this reason the government is planning to begin with corneal donation from the brain dead person.

Ramadoss said, “In India, to make presumed consent, the norm will take time. As a starter, we want to see if such a concept can be implemented. That's why we will start with the cornea and then move on to other vital organs.”

Under this law setting up of an authority independent of Director General of Health Services (DGHS) in the capital in order to give power to union territories is mentioned. In addition, it intends to make the punishments harsh and offences cognizable to prevent illegal transplantation activities.
Following are some of the recommendations mentioned below:

• To empower Union Territories, especially Government of NCT of Delhi to have their own appropriate authority instead of DGHS and / or Additional DG (Hospitals).
• To make the punishments under the Act harsh and cognizable for the illegal transplantation activities to deter the offenders from committing this crime.
• To provide for registration of the centres for removal of organs from the cadavers and brain stem dead patients for harvesting of organs instead of registration of centres for transplantations only.
• To allow swap operations between the related donor and recipients who do not match themselves but match with other similar donors / recipients.

A wide research has been done to fit this programme in Indian context by a Health Ministry team headed by DGHS, Dr R K Srivastava, who visited several countries to understand various type of organ donation concept. Some countries like Spain and Singapore follows presumed consent but India and United States follow consent concept.

Reportedly, organ donation has increased in Singapore, Spain and in US after the organ transplant law is implemented. Anbumani informed, “After introducing presumed consent, countries like Singapore and France have seen a tremendous increase in availability of organs.”

The Health Minister said that the final decision would be taken only after consulting experts and NGOs.

Also to collect the organs, the health ministry will set up 10 organ Retrieval and Banking Organisations (ORBO) in cities like Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Lucknow.

Incentives to Donor’s Relative

The government has also planned to give incentives to the donor’s family like lifelong free medical check-up and care in the hospital where the organ donation took place.

Besides, a customized life insurance policy of Rs 2 lakh for three years with one-time premium to be paid by the recipient in case of mortality and preferred status in organ transplant waiting list if the next-of-kin of a brain-dead donor requires a transplant in future.

Homework to be done before the law gets implemented

But before all these government need to do some prime effort to make this law socially and ethically compatible. There may be several reasons under which this law may be exploited; hence public awareness campaign is must.

There is also the need to put in place an effective regulatory framework, to make organ transplant more transparent and to make it available to the needy people who lose their life because of organ failure. This step by Union Health Ministry is a recommendable one, but only if it will be implemented on time and effectively.