Low Organ Donation in India

The Union health ministry has instructed states and union territories (UTs) to identify and track cases of brain stem death (BSD) in intensive care units (ICUs) in order to expedite cadaver organ donations.

1: Dimension- Challenge for low organ donation rate

• Despite the large number of possible BSD cases, the government feels that a major obstacle to India's poor organ donation rate is the insufficient identification and certification of these cases.
• Additional problems include
  • a lack of knowledge regarding organ donation
  • false beliefs about the procedure
  • infrastructure problems
• National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) has only 250 hospitals registered with it.

2: Dimension- Laws governing organs donation

• The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (THOTA), 1994 (amended in 2011), governs organ donation in India.
  • The Act introduced the idea of brain death to India and made the sale of organs for profit a criminal offense.
  • The latter made deceased organ donation possible by enabling the retrieval of organs from brain-stem dead individuals.
• In addition to regional (ROTTO) and state transplant organizations, the government established the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) as the premier center for organ procurement and distribution under the Act (SOTTO).
• The latter uses an organ-sharing network to distribute organs among recipients according to each state.