Six new categories of relatives have been sought to be included in the Human Organs and Tissues Transplantation Act, 1994 (amended in 2011) to find out more organ donors within the extended family of a patient. File photo
The Union Health Ministry has proposed to expand the definition of “near relatives” in the organ donation law in order to increase the number of organ transplants as existing rules turn out to be restrictive.
Six new categories of relatives have been sought to be included in the Human Organs and Tissues Transplantation Act, 1994 (amended in 2011) to find out more organ donors within the extended family of a patient.
The new categories of near relatives are (1) step father, step mother; (2) step brother, step sister, step son, step daughter and their spouses; (3) spouses of sons and daughters of recipient; (4) brothers and sisters of recipient's spouse and their spouses; (5) brothers and sisters of recipient's parents and their spouses; (6) first cousins [having common grandparent(s)] of the recipient and their spouses.
The ministry sought public comments on the proposal by September 25 before making suitable changes in the law.
Currently “near relative” means spouse, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, grandson, or granddaughter.
But it has been observed in the last five years that the new definition of "near relatives" didn't lead to any significant increase in availability of living donors because grandparents are either too old to donate or can't donate due to some adverse medical condition, and grand children are usually too young to donate organs. Thus the demand for organs outweighs their supply.
“The ministry has been receiving a number of grievances concerning to the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 of which majority are requests for organs due to non-availability of the near relative donor or blood group mismatch with near relative,” said an official.
“Widening the definition of near relative is a welcome move as the organ transplant programme in India is overwhelmingly dependent on altruistic donation by living individuals,” said Vivekanand Jha, executive director of The George Institute for Global Health, India.
He, however, felt that there should be enabling the law to prevent misuse for the proposed provisions. “The verification should be based on objective genetic tests and not just on documents,” said Jha, who is also the president-elect of the International Society of Nephrology.
Majority of the organ transplants in India happened within the families as the cadaver transplant records of the country are extremely poor.