Tamil Nadu’s deceased donor programme has a small, yet significant number of non-medico-legal case (MLC) donors. This pool of donors are certified as brain stem dead following medical causes that could include intracerebral haemorrhage.
The majority of organ donors in most transplant programmes are accident victims. Cases in which persons are injured in road accidents or even accidental falls and are declared brain dead are medico-legal cases warranting police clearance to go ahead with the organ donation process, officials said.
However, non-MLC donors are another category of donors. Here, only the cause of brain stem death is different. These persons are certified as brain stem dead due to medical causes such as intracerebral haemorrhage, cerebral infarct as a result of vessel thrombosis or other bleeding disorders, said R. Kanthimathy, member secretary of Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (Transtan).
“Many think that only those who were involved in traumatic injuries and declared brain dead are organ donors. But even families of persons, who suffered from certain conditions such as bleeding disorders and were declared brain dead, have volunteered to donate organs, and this needs to be appreciated,” she said.
Except that non-MLCs do not require police clearance, all other procedures for organ donation remain the same. Data available with Transtan shows a significant number of such non-MLC donors. There were 87 such donors since 2016. In 2016, of the total 185 donors, 35 were non-MLC donors. The following year saw 31 non-MLC donors out of the total 160 donors. From January to October 2018, 21 out of the total 116 donors were non-MLC donors. In fact, this data also shows a decline in MLCs, that is, donors injured in road traffic accidents.
“On one hand, medico-legal cases, primarily RTAs, are coming down. On the other hand, there is a relative increase in the number of non-MLC donors,” she pointed out. In one such non-MLC case, the family of a young adult, who was declared brain dead due to a bleeding disorder here, came forward to donate his organs.
