As many as 50 hospitals across Tamil Nadu have virtually put down their scalpels to protest against a March 1 government order shifting on them the onus of responsibility for the genuineness of documents submitted for kidney transplant surgeries using unrelated donors.Patients, whose surgeries had got necessary clearances from the state and district authorisation committees, are now waiting because the 50-odd hospitals that are eligible to conduct the renal transplants are reluctant to submit the mandatory certificate to the committee stating that all documents submitted to it were “genuine”.Following the expose of a kidney racket in Tsunami Nagar, a temporary rehabilitation colony of tsunami victims in suburban Chennai, the state administration cracked down on brokers and hospitals in an attempt to tighten loopholes in the Transplant of Human Organ Act 1994 and ensure that unrelated donors did not sell their kidneys. About 15 hospitals across the state have since been issued notices to produce forms 3 and 4 submitted along with the applications seeking permission for renal transplantation with regard to genuineness of their declarations about the donors relating to past surgeries.In the last three years, the state authorisation committee, comprising the Director of Medical Education, Director of Medical Services and the Dean of the Government General Hospital, has cleared nearly 2,000 kidney donors against about 2,100 applicants in Tamil Nadu. The new order requires the hospital concerned to furnish a certificate to the effect that all document submitted to the Authorisation Committee have been verified and found to be genuine. If the authorities find anything amiss later, the hospital would be held responsible for negligence and appropriate legal proceedings initiated against them by the competent authorities.While earlier, a similar declaration was expected to be signed by only the operating urologist or transplant surgeon, the order now mandates that the treating nephrologists and an authorised signatory of the hospital also ink the certificate. “This is like passing the buck on to the hospitals. The authorisation committee, which is empowered to investigate the genuineness of the donors and ensure that they are not selling their kidneys but donating them on compassionate grounds, should take the responsibility. In fact, the malice lies with the state and regional (Madurai and Coimbatore) committees which are accused of turning a blind eye to unrelated donors selling their kidneys and even taking compensation for that.
