Centralised software on the availability of organs and their donation in the State will be operational in eight weeks’ time, an affidavit before the Bombay High Court said on Monday.
A Division Bench of Justices Abhay Oka and A.S. Gadkari was hearing a petition filed by Siddanth Pal in 2013, seeking a direction for implementation of provisions of Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules. He has also sought real-time data on the availability of organs.
The principal secretary of the Public Health Department and secretary of the Medical Education and Drugs Department filed an affidavit that reads, “All the organ transplant data received directly from the registry transplant hospital is maintained by the State Appropriate Authority, i.e., Director Health Services, which is updated manually every month.” A web-based centralised data software is under development with the assistance of the director of information and technology, it said.
Awareness about the Human Organ Transplant Act Rules, 2014 as well as the importance of donation of human organs in cases of brain stem death and the benefits of transplantations in organ failure is being carried out through posters, banners, short films, radio jingles etc, the affidavit said.
There are group discussions, debates, talks and training programmes for transplant co-ordinators and doctors, and paramedical staff too are being organised through Regional Organ Transplant Organisation and Zonal Transplant Coordination Centres, it said.
Nearly 324 and 302 awareness activities in 2017 and 2018 respectively were conducted in the State during the Maha Avayav Dan Abhiyan by the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation, State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation, Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre, the government and non-governmental organisations. “All the instructions as well as accountability in transplant activities in registered transplant centres were already issued.”
The DHS has issued directions to all hospitals to maintain a centralised record of organ transplants carried out every year. It receives hospital-wise and organ-wise information of transplant every month from all centres on the basis of which the DHS monitors the implementation of the Rules, it said.
There are 92 registered hospitals for organ transplantation under The Transplantation of Organ and Tissue Act, 1994. However, hospital-based authorisation committees are non-existent in 74 of these. The number of organ transplants have been less than 25 in 2018.
