Create centralised software to curb illegal organ donation: HC

The Bombay high court (HC) directed the state to develop and commission centralised data software to deal with organ donation, retrieval and transplant cases, within six weeks.

It said the software will “take care of applications for approval, curb illegalities and ensure transparency”.

The division bench of justice OS Oka and justice MS Sanklecha issued the directions on April 22, while hearing compliance of its earlier directions, where it asked the state to appoint an authorisation committee in every hospital to undertake organ transplant procedures swiftly. However, the committees have not yet been formed. The state told the court that hospitals with less than 25 transplants in a year had not set up the committee, as the posts could not be afforded by the state. It said though ad hoc posts were created, they remained vacant as there were no applications.

On another occasion, though candidates had applied for the ad hoc posts, they did not turn up for the interviews.

However, based on data provided by the state regarding the Mumbai and Pune authorisation centres, the court said as the authorisation committee at Mumbai had received 321 cases for approval in 2018 and the Pune committee 347 cases, the state must consider having a full-time post of assistant professor in medicine, who would be part of the Mumbai and Pune authorisation committees.

First Published: May 10, 2019 02:30 IST