Expressing its concern over the confusion in laws governing transplantation of human body organs in Odisha and the State Government’s callousness towards it, the Odisha Rationalist Society has moved the Odisha High Court seeking its intervention to regulate this important but dangerous medical marvel.
Represented through its secretary Debendra Sutar, the organisation in a PIl has urged the court to direct the Government for setting up ‘Organ Banks’ for proper preservation of human organs through a nodal agency to regulate it. The petitioner has also sought direction to the Government to provide adequate infrastructure to preserve cadavers and organs for implantation and therapeutic purposes.
It may be mentioned that the important Central Government legislation, Transplantation of Human Organ Act of 1994, is yet to be implemented in Odisha. Till date, the storage of cadavers of unclaimed bodies is allowed for the teaching hospitals of the State under the provisions of the Orissa Anatomy Act of 1975.
It was for the effort of the petitioner organisation that the State Government amended the Act of 1975 in 2012 and allowed pledging donation of a person’s whole body after his or her death for academic purposes or donation of any body organs for transplantations. However, the amended Act has made no provisions for setting up an infrastructure to store or preserve cadavers or organs.
“In the absence of such infrastructures, the teaching hospitals are reluctant to receive the pledges made now by hundreds of such volunteers,” said the petitioner’s advocate Khirod Rout, adding that the Government has also miserably failed to undertake a massive awareness campaign to encourage body donation and provide adequate penal provisions for prevention of commercial dealings in human organs.