New Delhi The acute shortage of harvestable organs is prompting the government to reconsider the definition of “death” in the law on organ transplantation. The proposed changes to the Human Organ and Tissue Transplantation Act will aim to address a discrepancy in the definition of death. death certificate.
Officials from the health ministry and central think-tank NITI Aayog have observed that there is a difference in the way death is defined in death certificates, in the case of natural death and for brain death.
Anoop Kumar, head of the kidney transplant department at Safdarjung Hospital, said, “In case of natural death, a patient’s organs also stop functioning, but in case of brain death, the death certificate includes living vital organs such as the heart, Lungs etc. are mentioned.
“Thus, the patient’s family members assume that the patient is still alive because of the organ function.”
“There are plans to harmonize the definition of ‘death’ in death certificates as the definition of brain stem cell death is different from natural death in the certificate,” an official said.
“Till now, doctors harvest organs from a patient who is declared brain stem cell dead. Therefore, there is a need to revise the definition of death especially for the purpose of organ donation and to amend the existing Transplantation of Human Organ and Tissue Act,” the official said.
Another challenge is that doctors will have to decide when to start counseling the patient’s family members about possible organ harvesting from their patient’s body, the official said.
Doctors say limbs harvested from one brain dead person can save at least seven lives and about 10 patients are sent to intensive care units as brain dead at any given time in the metro city.
“We are preparing a roadmap on how to increase autopsy organ donation in India. Cases of brain stem cell death increase the chances of destruction of vital organs like heart, kidney, eye, liver etc. We will present our report to the Health Minister this week.”
Doctors say lakhs of patients every year remain on waiting lists at top hospitals for life-saving organ transplants amid a severe shortage of donors.
In India, about 50,000 people require heart transplants, another 200,000 for kidneys, and 100,000 each require liver and eye transplants. But the supply is far behind.
“About 200,000 patients need kidney transplants, but we get only 10,000 live donations per year. The current gap is huge. The organ donation ratio is less than 0.8 per million population, while in western countries it is around 30 per million,” Kumar said.
Other challenges include low awareness among doctors, patient and police, religious sensitivity and lack of medical infrastructure.
The self-life of living organs is short. After recovery of the organ from the body, the heart only survives for 6 hours.
Emailed queries to a health ministry spokesperson did not elicit any response.
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and breaking news Updates on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.