Centre to give Rs 5 lakh cover to deceased organ donors’ kin

CHENNAI: The central government will set up a fund to provide scholarships and meet medical expenses of families who have donated the organs of a deceased kin.
“We will cover up to Rs 5 lakh for families who are struggling to educate their children or are unable to access healthcare because of monetary reasons,” said Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services.
Prasad was in the city on Sunday to launch the annual report of Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) at Raj Bhavan.
Noting that many of the donor families are economically backwards, he said the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) had proposed helping them financially. He added that the funds won’t be given to families directly in cash as it is against the altruistic principle that drives organ donation. “We will directly route the funds to the institutions,” he said.
Officials and doctors associated with organ transplant welcomed the move as most of the deceased donors were breadwinners.
Health officials are also mulling over including first cousins and in-laws in the list of live donors who can donate without appearing before the organ transplant authorization committees of respective states. “We want to increase the donation pool without losing time while waiting for a hearing by the committee,” said Prasad.
Transplant experts, however, are skeptical about how this move would help. “Even if the applicant claims the donor is a sibling, doctors still ask them to appear before the committee as there have been instances where paid donations have happened and the donor turned out to be unrelated to the recipient although documents said otherwise,” said a senior doctor who has been instrumental in facilitating organ donation drives in the state. While officials praised the state government, feted doctors and donor families for catapulting Tamil Nadu as the leader of organ donation in the country, experts also stressed the need for expanding the programme within the state.
“Although the organ donation rate has gone up from 0.16 per million population in 2009 to 1.9 per million population in 2015, the last three years the rate has been stagnant,” said liver transplant surgeon Mohamed Rela.
According to the annual report of the 156 cadaver donations made in 2015-2016 in the state, 104 were from Chennai, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur and Vellore. This was attributed to more transplant hospitals in this zone compared to others.