ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION

Subject: Healthcare

Context: Two patients undergo lung transplant at Apollo Hospitals

Concept: 

Organ donation/transplantation

Organ donation means giving part of the body (organ) to a person with end stage organ disease who needs a transplant.

The organs that can be donated for transplantation include kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and small bowel and tissues such as corneas, heart valves, skin and bone.Tissue means a group of cells performing a particular function in the human body such as bone, skin, cornea of the eye, heart valve, blood vessels, nerves and tendon etc.

Living Donor Organ Donation: A person during his life can donate one kidney, a portion of pancreas and a part of the liver.

Deceased Donor Organ Donation: A person can donate multiple organs and tissues after (brain-stem/cardiac) death.

Legal Framework:

Organ Transplantation and Donation is permitted by law, and covered under the “Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994”, which has allowed organ donation by live & Brain-stem Dead donors.

In 2011, amendment of the Act also brought in donation of human tissues, thereby calling the Amended Act “Transplantation of Human Organs & Tissues Act 2011”.

The Government of India has also started a National Organ and Transplant Program (NOTP), under which patients below the poverty line are supported for the cost of transplant as well as cost of immunosuppression after transplant for one year.