Mumbai: For ease of organ donation 3 panels to quicken process

MUMBAI: Organ-failure patients in the state will no longer have to travel to a lone centre in Mumbai’s St George’s Hospital compound for permissions needed to undergo life-saving transplants.
The state government has set up three regional authorisation panels to “speed up” transplant applications between unrelated organ donors and recipients.
In a circular issued last week, the department of medical education and research (DMER) announced the setting-up of three seven-member committees in public hospitals: JJ at Byculla, KEM in Parel and BJ Medical College/Sasoon Hospital, Pune.
The panels, that will be headed by the hospital superintendent, will have representatives from Indian Medical Association, state health department and DMER.
“This proposal has been drawn up by the state and submitted to Bombay high court,’’ said a senior DMER official. The court has been hearing cases of a kidney racket detected in Pune’s Ruby Hall Clinic in March and protests against DMER’s earlier proposal that made hospitals responsible for verification of documents submitted by a potential donor and would-be recipient.
“We always had an authorisation committee in JJ Hospital but it stopped functioning in 2011. We have revived it and added two more centres to ensure easy accessibility for patients,’’ said DMER director Dr Deelip Mhaisekar. He said that when the Pune kidney racket came up, many criticised the fact that the state authorisation committee is located far away in Mumbai for people coming from interiors of the state.
As per the new formula, patients from Mumbai, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg will go to JJ Hospital, while those from Mumbai Suburban, Thane and Palghar will go to KEM Hospital. The Pune public hospital will look at applications from Pune, Kolhapur, Solapur, Satara and Sangli.
The latest DMER circular supersedes the one of April 11 that made hospitals accountable to review and verify that a donor is genuine. Many doctors and hospital administrators had protested against it. “As per the April 11 circular, a hospital’s CEO would have to sign every page of the application to certify that he has verified the document. How can an individual certify when the government isn’t willing to?’’ asked a doctor who didn’t want to be named.
The latest circular says the hospital’s authority would only be examining “overall facts and circumstances presented before it and record satisfaction that there is no commercial transaction between the recipient and the donor”. Such a certification would help the state or district authorisation panel, it said.