This story is from August 4, 2015

Stringent organ donation protocols proposed

Gujarat’s draft guidelines for organ harvesting and transplantation has proposed stringent protocols and a transparent mechanism for organ donors, retrieving hospitals and recipients.
Stringent organ donation protocols proposed
AHMEDABAD: Gujarat’s draft guidelines for organ harvesting and transplantation has proposed stringent protocols and a transparent mechanism for organ donors, retrieving hospitals and recipients. The draft guideline of Gujarat: Deceased donor organ and tissue transplantation (G-DOT) has proposed that all private or government hospitals that will be registered as designated Organ and Tissue Transplant Hospital (OTTH) across the state will have to declare detailed costs of organ transplantation on their website.
Even small hospitals that help in organ retrieval of deceased patients will automatically get registered with the State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organization (SOTTO).
All activities of SOTTO will be governed by an authorization committee headed by the principal secretary, health and family welfare department.
The new guidelines also propose to fine hospitals heavily — Rs 10,000 to Rs 10 lakh — for refusing to comply by procedures for declaring a patient brain dead. It may also lead to cancellation of the hospital’s license.
Beside this, SOTTO will also put in place a centralized software that will monitor in real time the medical condition of organ recipients registered or undergoing treatment across private and government OTTH. “For instance, in the case of a kidney transplant, the software will report in real time biochemical or blood reports of recipients in need of the kidney. This includes reports on metabolites like urea, creatinine, guanidine and related compounds. On the basis of these reports, SOTTO will decide the priority of which patient should receive the organ first,” says a senior state health official.
The G-DOT has also removed the criteria of a minimum of 100 bed hospital for conducting a surgery for organ retrieval from deceased donors. “In fact, even small hospitals have helped in organ retrieval in Gujarat so we have proposed no such criteria,” says the health official. SOTTO may ask its team to procure organs from other hospitals whenever the need arises and in such case the government will bear all expenses of organ retrieval.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA