Govt. to organise campaign to promote public’s confidence in deceased donor organ donation
Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation’s campaign will aim to dispel myths surrounding brain death organ donations, says Health Minister
The government, through the Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation, will organise a campaign to dispel the myths surrounding brain death organ donations to promote public’s confidence in deceased donor organ donation programme, Health Minister Veena George said in the Assembly on Friday.
Replying during the question hour on questions raised by members on organ donation, the role of K-SOTTO, and how exploitation of the poor in the name of organ donation can be prevented, Ms. George said K-SOTTO was yet to receive any complaint from anyone in the State regarding organ donation wherein there was exchange of money.
“Organ donation wherein money transaction is involved is illegal under the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act of 1994. All unrelated living donor organ transplants are undertaken in the State only after a detailed scrutiny of various documents by the district-level authorisation committees to ensure that money is not a motivation for organ donation. Even so, as long as individuals involved in an unrelated living donor organ transplantation do not come forward to put up a formal complaint, K-SOTTO will not be able to take any action,” the Minister clarified.
She said K-SOTTO was, however, conducting an organ transplant audit across all 49 organ transplant centres in the State to take stock of the situation and ensure that no rules had been violated.
Ms. George said the government was also trying to simplify the official documentation processes required for clearance of unrelated organ donations and getting private hospitals, where the majority of transplants take place, to evolve some uniformity in the rates of transplants.
She said the possibility of the government supplying immunosuppressant drugs needed by organ recipients for their lifetime at subsidised rates was also being looked at.
In order to make organ transplants affordable and more accessible to people, the government had already intervened to set up a transplant institute in Kozhikode, the details of which were being worked out.
In response to Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan’s query about the huge waiting list of patients with end-stage disease waiting for organs and the non-availability of organs, Ms. George said K-SOTTO was trying to promote cadaver donation, which had been dropping steadily in the State after 2016 because of the misinformation campaigns.
In the past five years, only 96 cadaver organ donations had taken place in the State whereas the number of people waiting for organs had been growing. At present, there were 2,265 people on the waiting list for kidney, 408 persons waiting for a liver, and 71 for heart.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan commented that the shortage of organs was a hard reality and that the government needed to protect the interests of the patients while at the same time ensure that no illegal trade in organs happened.
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