ORGAN
DONATION
CITIZENS TO BE
ORGAN DONORS AUTOMATICALLY,
UNLESS THEY OPT
OUT
(like in France
& some other countries)
In order to address the issue of
shortages in availability of organs, following is suggested –
1.
To begin with, it should be made obligatory that patients who die in
hospitals should donate their organs (kidneys, heart, liver, eyes, etc.) unless
they insist to opt out
2.
A proper system of opting out to be put in place – it should cover
legal & medical aspects of the patient
3.
Proper and adequate infrastructure to be created in all hospitals for
the increased number of cases that would come up for donation. This includes
operation theatres, storing and transporting organs, staff, equipment, etc.
Ideally, this infrastructure should be specially created and be kept segregated
from that used for other patients
4.
SOPs (standard operating procedures) should be issued by Health
Ministry which should encompass –
a.
Timeliness in performing the procedure as relatives are keen to have
the corpse as the earliest
b.
Ensuring that the dignity of the body be maintained by restoring it back
to its original form. At present, the major hurdle in finding donors is that
the relatives are sceptical of the manner in which the body is given back without
properly dressing up the cuts and wounds due to donation
5.
To ensure that malpractices do not crop up, the organs available
should be allotted by a system without manual intervention. The list of donees
should be available in a central computerised system, and whenever an organ is
available, system should allot it based on the queue and least distance between
donor & done
6.
Standard charges should be collected from the donees and given to
donors’ hospital to cover their costs. Additional costs for implanting could be
charged from the donee based on preagreed rates
Having coped with the hospital death
volumes, if shortage of organs persists, the compulsory donation scheme should
be expanded to cover other deaths as is done in some countries like France
