No question of rolling back circular on organ harvest, says Jeevasarthakathe

Four hospitals, including two from Aster Group, one from Apollo Group, and one from Sparsh Group, have approached Jeevasarthakathe, the state body for facilitating cadaveric organ donation, and asked it to roll back its circular issued on Monday that says hospitals where an organ is harvested will no longer get the first right over it and that it will go to the common pool.

Kishore Phadke, Convenor, Jeevasarthakathe, said that earlier when organs were harvested at a hospital if a patient seeking the same organs was present in the same hospital, the hospital would get the first right over them.

"Preference was given to the retrieval centre. Preference was given to in house patients, later to the general pool. But a lot of patients waiting in the general line are getting affected. So we have changed the rule. We are finding a lot of irregularities. Preferential shifting of patients is happening. On medical grounds, there is no basis for in-house donation. There are no legal reasons either," he said.

To streamline the process and equitable distribution of organs, this is important, he added. "There is a nexus we want to break. The donor offers for altruistic reasons. This is the objective of the NOTTA Act. This is defeated if this happens for commercial purposes and patients are shifted," he said.

"The hospitals approached me to withdraw the circular. I asked them to come up with their recommendations and then we will look into it. We periodically have made changes to allocation criteria. Our health officials are looking into issuing a government order. We are even taking legal counsel. So they have to follow the circular from Monday itself," he added.