‘Stiff penalties mooted for unethical practices in organ grafting’

NEW DELHI - Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Saturday said stiff penalties have been proposed for unethical practices related to organ donation in an amendment to the existing law.

Speaking at a function to mark the first Organ Donation Day in the country, Azad said that the amended legislation would “address concerns about optimum utilisation of harvested organs and the provision for networking all organ retrieval and transplant centres”.

Very stiff penalties have been proposed for unethical practices. The proposed amendment has found wide acceptance in parliament and would soon be enacted into a law, Azad said, urging people to donate organs.

The Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Bill, 2009 was introduced in parliament last year. It is supposed to come up in the current session of the house.

The bill aims to amend the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, which regulates removal, storage and transplantation of human organs.

The changes proposed in the existing law include allowing swap donation, tissue donation and inclusion of grandparents and grandchildren in the definition of relatives for organ donation.

Plans are also afoot to include (a clause on) the willingness for organ donation in driving licence. A nationwide organ donation card and registry would also be launched, Azad said.

It is paradoxical that a country like ours with a billion plus population should have a shortage of organs for transplants. Around 10 lakh Indians are suffering from corneal blindness and are awaiting corneal transplantation, he said.

Against the requirement of 80,000-100,000 corneas per year only 38,000 eyes are collected annually,” he said.

About 150,000 people are diagnosed with kidney failure in India every year, for whom the only way out is an organ transplantation. However, only about 5,000 of these patients get kidneys for transplantation every year, he added.