A new rule threatens to deprive patients, including foreign nationals, registered with the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (Transtan) of their seniority in the waiting list while seeking allocation of organs from other States or national pool.
According to sources in the health department, the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (Notto), which lays down policy guidelines and protocols for various functions relating to procurement and distribution of organs/tissues, has instructed that patients on the waiting list in States should register afresh with Notto for consideration in allocation of organs from the national pool.
In the process, the patients would have to forgo their seniority in the State and join a fresh list at the national level from the date of re-registration with Notto. Though there is no official notification yet in this regard, Transtan authorities confirmed that a message was received on WhatsApp making it mandatory for patients seeking organs from other States to re-register with Notto.
‘Unfair practice’
The practice so far has been that organs harvested from a brain dead person in a State are allocated to patients on waiting list considering their seniority and health condition. When there are no takers in the State, the organ is put on the national pool to benefit patients in other States.
“The new rule threatens the fair allocation of organs to patients who are battling for life. This is an extremely unfair situation since patients who have been waiting for a year or more for life-saving organs will have to forgo their seniority. Notto should consider maintaining the seniority of waiting list in States considering the fact that many patients die in about a year or so while waiting for organ/organs,” a senior heart transplant surgeon said on Wednesday.
He said the issue had to be dealt with urgently as it was a matter of life and death for all patients with end stage organ failure.
“This may also lead to litigation when a patient waiting for a year finds that a recipient registered only a few days ago in another State gets an organ superseding his/her seniority.”
After receiving representations from major hospitals, the Tamil Nadu Health Department has written to Notto requesting that seniority of patients on waiting list in the State be retained.