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ORGAN DONATION

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