Hyderabad, October 22: Chief Minister K Rosaiah highlighted the possibility of a scheme for organ transplantation to save end stage organ failure patients in India.
Speaking at the 21st annual conference of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT), he said, “Even as over 6,000 transplantations are being done annually in India,it fulfills merely 2 percent of the requirement. The main problem is the non-availability of organs as not many living individuals are willing to come forward to donate.”
“The best method for improving the availability of organs and also dealing with the unethical issues like organ trafficking is to establish a robust cadaver donor transplantation programme,” he added.
“The government of Andhra Pradesh is determined to promote cadaver transplantation in a big way. We have recently designed a scheme ‘Jeevandaan’ and a structure that can address all issues related to it,” he said.
Meanwhile Prof. A Gopal Kishan, president of ISOT, said that organ transplant programme needed a boost and that ‘Jeevandaan’ scheme had not taken shape yet. “Although the scheme came into existence four months back, it is yet to take shape. I urge the chief minister to declare Andhra Pradesh to be the first state to start cadaver transplants under such a scheme. There is a pressing need to shorten the waiting period for organs as the shortage is leading to organ trafficking scams,” he said
Further, he said there should also be a central registry system for all organs to maintain transparency. Adequate funds by the state and the central government should be given and the term brain-dead should be defined, he said.
President of the Asian Society for Organ Transplantation, Dr Marwan Marsi said that India had finally taken steps to control the commercialisation of organ transplants.
“While it is good to see that India is making efforts to shed the organ scam centre label, there is a need for more education, funding and establishing self-sufficiency,” he said.
–Agencies