Hyderabad: In order to preserve donated organs, it is important that the organ preservation solution (OPS) is notified, regulated, and listed as a medical device, as it will help boost the Jeevandan scheme.
Telangana tops south India in organ donation, and the scarcity of the preservation solution is found to be one hindrance in retrieving organs and transporting them across cities.
For this reason, there is a demand that the Central government amend the Transplant-ation of Human Organs Act and list organ preservation solution so that organ harvesting can be expedited and delays minimised.
The solution is a crucial medical device which supplies oxygen and vital nutrients to harvested organs and helps maintain the vitality of the organs.
Mr Pavan Choudary, chairman and director general of the Medical Technology Association of India (MTAI), explai-ned, “The listing of the device will help monitor the quality of the device and also give a boost to the organ donation program. Presently, the biggest worry for doctors is organ failure and for this reason, they are not encouraging cross-city transplants until they have the resources in place. The OPS will go a long way in making this process easy.”
The Telangana case study has shown that proper counselling and also retrieval of organs after the patient is declared brain dead have helped in organ transplantation. How-ever, it requires multi-speciality hospitals and skilled doctors and paramedical staff to facilitate the transfer.
About 1.8 lakh patients are waiting in the list for kidney transplants but only 6,000 are carried out each year. Those with liver failure are estimated at 2 lakh patients a year. Howe-ver, only 1,500 transplants are performed every year.
Experts state that these small changes in the Act will go a long way in making it easier to access, preserve, and transplant organs in patients in need/transplant organs in urgent cases.
