trade data, The changes to the organ transplant rules announced by the Union health ministry last week, are small, but significant, steps towards giving a new lease of life to many people with failing organs. The ministry has done away with an age cap that reduced the pool of organ donors for a large section of critically ill people above 65. Senior citizens in this age group can now register to receive donations from live donors. The removal of domicile-related restrictions is another much-needed move to make organs accessible for timely transplants. Earlier, some states either registered recipients who lived there or accorded priority to them in allocating organs. States such as Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat, and Telangana charge between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 to register patients who need an organ replacement. The health ministry has rightly directed these states to stop charging this fee.
India conducts the third highest number of transplants in the world every year. Yet barely four per cent of the patients who require a liver, heart or kidney transplant manage to get one. The percentages are very likely to go up once the changes in the rules announced last week take effect. The organ shortage problem is, however, a complex one, that continues to confound planners, even in nations whose healthcare systems are far better equipped than that of India’s.
