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Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu standing in the way of national organ registry?

Head of India’s organ transplant programme says state bodies need to cooperate to bridge gaps

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Abhishek Jogdandar’s family were willing to donate his organs but doctors could not find a match on time
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India has an ‘estimated’ 2 lakh patients who need a kidney but only about 6,000 transplants are performed each year. 

Why are these figures just estimates? India has no national registry, and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are among the states showing resistance to the creation of one, according to Dr Anil Kumar, who heads India’s organ transplant programme.

“Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are some of the states reluctant to follow the national guidelines,” said Dr Kumar. 

While these states are within the law in doing so, the lack of a national registry makes it harder to bridge the gap between India’s transplant needs.

In December last year, when 21-year-old accident victim Abhishek Jogdandar’s family donated his organs, doctors failed to find a recipient for his heart and lungs — this despite 50,000 end-stage cardiac patients need a heart transplant each year.

With the setting up of five Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisations (ROTTO) across the country, officials hope to reduce the possibility of this happening again.

At present, Maharashtra has four different regional Zonal Transplant Coordination Committees (ZTCCs) in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad that oversee organ donation and maintain their own separate registries. 

In Tamil Nadu, the state government monitors the distribution of organs. 

Both systems work fairly well. Maharashtra’s ZTCCs are reportedly averse to sharing their waiting lists with the newly formed ROTTO at KEM Hospital in Mumbai that will handle training and awareness programmes in the region.

“It’s okay even if they share data after a transplant has taken place. This will help us understand survival rates after the transplant better, among other parameters. National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) still does not have this data for all the states,” Kumar said.

When DNA got in touch with Dr Abhay Huprikar, Secretary, ZTCC Pune, he said, “Individual hospitals have to register with the NOTTO and their registries can be seen. We will share the data if the DHS (Directorate of Health Services) orders us to. But so far, we haven’t been asked to.”

Officials at the ROTTO in KEM though confirmed that two mails have been sent to all the ZTCCs in Maharashtra so far.

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