New Delhi: There is a need to promote cadaver donation rather than relying on living donors in order to avoid the risk of organ trade, Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel said on November 22. Ms Patel, who inaugurated a national biomaterial centre (tissue bank) at the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), said it would also help avoid the inherent risk to the health of a living donor. The main thrust and objective of the tissue bank is to fill up the gap between demand and supply as well as “quality assurance” in the availability of various tissues.
It is important to understand that in India it is mainly the living donors who are donating organs and only about 23 per cent of the organ transplants are being done with organs obtained from cadavers.
There is a need to promote cadaver or deceased organ donation rather than relying on living donors in order to avoid the risk of commercial trading of organs and also to avoid the inherent risk to the health of the living donor, she said.
She stressed the need to spread awareness in the community at large, that a living person can save the life of only one person but a deceased or cadaver organ donor can save up to 9 lives by donating vital organs.
Apart from promoting organ donation, it is also important to improve the infrastructure and capacity of government hospitals to undertake transplantation so that the poor and the needy could benefit, she said.
Congratulating Safdarjung Hospital for its initiative, Ms Patel said that deriving inspiration from this, more government hospitals should come forward and take up organ transplantation to benefit the poor and needy patients.
The national-level tissue bank will fulfil the demands of tissue transplantation including activities for procurement, storage and fulfil distribution of biomaterials.
The activities of the centre will include coordination for tissue procurement and distribution, donor tissue screening, removal of tissues and storage, preservations of tissue, and laboratory screening of tissues.
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