Maha govt to soon finalise SOPs for organ transplant

Taking serious note of the alleged kidney transplant racket at a leading Mumbai hospital, Maharashtra government has decided to soon lay down a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that will help identify both organ donors and recipients.
Both the donors and recipients will be linked via Aadhar card that will prevent fake donors from selling their kidneys for monetary gains, state Health Minister Deepak Sawant told reporters here today.
Mumbai-based L H Hiranandani Hospital's CEO and four doctors were recently arrested in connection with the alleged kidney transplant racket.
"After the Hiranandani (hospital) racket was busted, I had a meeting with the Chief Minister in which it was decided to finalise SOPs on a priority bases. This will help authorise both donors and recipients," Sawant said.

"There are some discrepancies in Organ Transplantation Act-1994 that will be done away with once the SOPs are finalised," he said.
The minister said that a committee, chaired by him and comprising a urologist, a nephrologist, members of the Medical Council and legal cell of government along with some private doctors, will be formed and entrusted with the task of submitting their suggestions within 15 days.

"The committee will be formed within next eight days and will be tasked to make a set of SOPs in a period of 15 days," he said.
Sawant said that in future, both donors and recipients will be shown a video in which the implications, complications and hazards of kidney transplant will be explained to them.

"The whole process will be video recorded and later a declaration form will have to be filled by both that they understand and agree for kidney transplant.
The Minister said that at present there are 75 licensed
kidney transplant centres, 21 liver transplant centres, 7 heart transplant centres and 5 for lung transplant in the state.
"In the Hiranandani case, their organ transplant license has been cancelled. However, cancelling of their (doctors who have been arrested) practising license will depend on the final verdict in court," Sawant said.
The racket was exposed after the police were tipped off that a kidney transplant operation had been scheduled on July 14 at the privately-run Hiranandani Hospital in Powai, where donor and recipient were not related.

Following the bust-up, nine persons (other than the arrested four doctors and hospital CEO), including the donor, receiver and agents were arrested.
The operation on Brijkishor Jaiswal, the recipient, was stopped at the last moment as police found that the woman who was donating the kidney to him was not his real wife, contrary to the papers submitted by the duo.
The woman had pretended to be Jaiswal's wife only to be able to donate him the kidney for monetary gains, according to police.