The Hindu Business Line : Experts urge relook at Organ Transplant Act

THE Human Organ Transplant Act, which is 10-year-old needs a review and suitable amendments made to promote cadaver organ donation and ensure that the needy get the benefit.

Reflecting this view, several experts drawn from the medical, legal, NGOs and Media felt that the legal and ethical issues, need to be addressed and effective steps taken to create a transplant registry, a cadaver bank, trauma centres, reduce time-lags etc., at a workshop on "Organ Transplantation," organised jointly by the Gandhi Medical College and the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS).

Inaugurating the workshop, Mr D. Sudarshan Reddy, Advocate General, Andhra Pradesh said, "We should adopt a model that is within the purview of our Constitution.

With reports of sale of organs continuing, and euthanasia and suicide being illegal as per law, it was necessary to take into consideration the ethical dimension."

Noted transplant surgeon, Dr S. Sahariah of the KIMS said nothing much had happened in 10 years since the State Government passed the Organ Transplant law.

It aimed at banning paid organ donation and promoting cadaver donations. With only 37 cadaver transplants, the main purpose of promoting it through the law, has not been achieved, he said.

The silver lining, however, has been the fact that the expertise and necessary wherewithal to carry out transplants within the country has been established at many centres. Since, 1981, about 3,624 organ transplants (mostly kidney) have been done in AP, and only 37 cadaver. In the last 10 years in the entire country, about 400 cadaver transplants were done, Dr Sahariah, who has himself done over a thousand kidney transplants said.

The Principal Secretary, Medical & Health, Mr I.V. Subba Rao, in his remarks said the World Health Organisation (WHO), had warned of `transplant tourism' in some countries. "I want health tourism to flourish, but not this," he remarked.

Dr Pradeep Deshpande, Head of Nephrology, Gandhi Medical College and convenor of the workshop said the suggestions from doctors, MOHAN Foundation, Advocates and others would be incorporated and presented to the Government as inputs for the relook into the Act.

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