Frame rules to harvest organs in pvt hospitals :Bombay HC

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has asked the state health department to frame guidelines for organ harvesting of brain-dead patients in private unregistered hospitals after a petitioner complained that many rules inconvenienced and made it difficult for relatives of the donor to donate organs and the rules stipulated that the donor be moved to a registered hospital for harvesting them.

The state said that the draft guidelines were ready and would be decided on Friday by the health department.

A division bench of Justices Naresh Patil and Nitin Sambre was hearing a writ petition filed by Swapnil Raut, who suffers from kidney-related problems. Mr Raut is awaiting a kidney transplant.

Mr Raut stated in his petition that as Hiranan-dani Hospital's licence to harvest organs had been suspended, it failed to get requisite permissions from the health department on time after a 71-year old brain dead donor’s family had agreed to donate his organs He died of cardiac arrest while the permission was awaited and his organs were lost. The petition said that the state should frame guidelines for harvesting organs of donors in unregistered hospitals.

Organ harvesting is permitted only in hospitals that are registered with the health department and the organ retrieval and the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee  monitors transplant.  

The state told the HC that draft guidelines for harvesting organs of donors admitted in unregistered hospitals was already prepared and the health committee would be deciding on it in a meeting on February 9.

After hearing the submissions the bench stressed on the need for having a system to retrieve organs of brain dead donors expeditiously. It also sought details of the implementation of the guidelines and the framework for harvesting organs in unregistered hospitals.