National Organ Transplant Programme (NOTP)

Organ Transplant in India: The Present Situation

• It is estimated that every three minutes, a patient requires an organ transplant.
• More than two lakh Indians require transplantation annually. However, not even 10% get it.
• Once a patient is declared brain dead, almost 37 different organs and tissues can be donated, including heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and lungs. [important fact for CSAT GS]
• Whereas, when a brain dead patient is kept for autopsy for hours, his heart finally fails, after which only a few tissues like cornea, bone, skin and blood vessels can be re-used.
• In India, 1.5 lakh new patients get end-stage renal failure every year. Of these, only 3,500 undergo kidney transplants. About 6,000 get dialysis while the rest perish, while 1.6 lakh people die of road accidents every year.
• Around 4.5 lakh patients require organ transplants annually. Only 35,000 organ transplants have taken place in our country in the past decade
• On an average, 3,000 people die every year because of lack of timely organ transplant surgeries. About 40 needy patients can benefit from donation of an entire human body.

What is the solution?

• Public advertisement campaigns to create awareness and enthusiasm among people for organ transplant.
• More dialysis centres, transplant centres with transplant surgeons and nurses
• Free or subsidized diagnostic services and immuno-suppressant drug supply for the poor and needy.

What is National Organ Transplantation Programme (NOTP) ?

• A program by Union Health Ministry.
• It aims to setup a single apex national organization that will procure and distribute human organs.
• The autonomous National Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (NOPDO) at the Centre and 10 State Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (SOPDO)
• Apart from that, Union Government  will provide funds to States, for
• For developing bio-material centres in states — storage banks for skin, bones, heart valves and organs
• For cost of immunosupressant drugs.

What are immunosuppressant Drugs?

They’re crucial medicines that have to be taken life long by transplant patients to ensure their own immune system does not attack the foreign organ.

What is Indian Organ Donor Register?

• Health Ministry aims to establish this official record book.
• It will enable individuals to record their legal consent to become an organ or tissue donor after death.
• The Register will ensure that consent (or objection) to donating organs for transplantation can be verified by authorized medical personnel across India. In the event of death, information about the decision will be accessed from the Register and provided to family.
• This registry will have information on all types of organ procurement, matching, distribution, transplantation and complications. It will also maintain entries of transplant centres, transplant surgeons, dialysis physician and dialysis centres

Why is NOTP in News?

• Because in July 2012, Government  decided to scaled down the budget allocation of NOTP to almost 1/10th its original provision.
• Government  will no longer give construction money for developing bio-material centres in states — storage banks for skin, bones, heart valves and organs —
• They will no longer provide funds for new transplantation units or to strengthen the existing ones.
• The cost of dialysis units — originally attached with the renal transplant programme — will also be cut.
• Government  will no longer fund the Cost of Immunosuppressant drugs

Why this budget cut in NOTP?

• Because officials in Health ministry feel that the job of the Center is to coordinate between states, to see that organs retrieved from one transplant unit is made available to needy patients in others.
• In short, Government wants to cut down the subsidy bill. (be it LPG, Kerosene, Diesal or organ transplant.) Now why would Government want to cut down the subsidy bill? You might find the answer in Eurozone Crisis article.