9 hours ago
Centre moves to enhance organ transplant services in govt hospitals after review shows capacity constraints
New Delhi: The Union government is preparing to help public hospitals perform more organ transplants after a review showed only a fourth of the 18,000 transplants in 2023 were done by them.
The health ministry has completed a 2023 assessment of all government institutions with a license for organ transplants and it is now in the process of reconciling last year's data.
A lack of medical expertise and dedicated ICU beds for transplant patients have been identified as the main stumbling blocks.
Around 90 government hospitals have a license to conduct organ transplants – a procedure that is expensive in private hospitals but within the reach of the poor in government ones.
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Organ donation guidelines are given in the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 and the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules, 2014. These are monitored and regulated by the National Organ Tissue and Transplant Organization (Notto).
'Right now, Notto is assessing the government institutions having the license to conduct organ transplant procedures. This is being done because these centres are under-performing. More than 90 institutions have valid licenses from state government authorities to conduct the organ transplants. The central government is trying to understand where are the gaps and what are the challenges hospitals are facing and where things need to be strengthened and improved," said a senior government official familiar with the matter, requesting anonymity.
India faces a massive shortage of organs for transplants because of cultural reasons and a general lack of awareness, although the number of transplants has significantly increased from 4,990 in 2013 to 18,378 in 2023.
It stood at 14,155 between January and September, 2024.
However, around 75% of these transplants took place in private hospitals in 2023.
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Capacity issues identified
The health ministry has held wide consultations with hospital authorities from all over the country to discuss the matter. The last such meeting was held on Wednesday and involved all government transplant hospitals from states and UTs.
'We found major issues with the hospitals like lack of training of the medical experts to perform organ transplants, unavailability of trained doctors, and lack of ICU beds for transplant patients among others. We are also reconciling the transplant data shared by government hospitals to verify the number of transplants these hospitals are doing. We are exploring ways and means to see how we can increase the capacities of government hospitals," the official said adding that in the future some of the best performing hospitals can give training to the other hospitals.
Some of the better performing government institutions include: AII India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS-New Delhi), Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), Safdarjung Hospital, RML hospital, Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre, PGI Chandigarh.
'There is no point in issuing new licenses to the institutions, until the existing ones are running properly. We are trying to strengthen the capacities of the government hospitals for both living donors and deceased organ transplants because there is a huge waiting list in hospitals," said the second official.
Despite having the largest population in the world, the organ donation rate in India is less than 1 per million population. Spain, has the world's highest organ donation rate at around 48 per million population.
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In 2023, the union government launched guidelines for organ transportation to ensure a uniform organ transport policy.
A person after his death can give new life to up to 8 people by donating vital organs such as kidney, liver, lung, heart, pancreas and intestines and improve the quality life of many more by donating tissues like cornea, skin, bone, heart valve etc.
Queries sent to the health ministry remained unanswered till press time.
