Taking note of the general refrain that private hospitals prefer wealthier foreign patients to Indians when it comes to heart and kidney transplants, the Union Health Ministry has firmed up guidelines to ensure that Indians, NRIs and PIOs are given preferential treatment over foreigners in receiving organs donated by Indian donors. The Centre has asked the States to ensure financial assistance to the poor Indian applicants.
“Top preference should be given to Indians, followed by NRIs and PIOs. Foreigners should be the last priority. But we have noted that some hospitals are ignoring Indians and giving priority to foreigners who have deep pockets. This is against ethics and rules,” said Dr Vimal Bhandari, head of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) under the Union Health Ministry.
“Heart and kidney are precious. There is a wide gap between the number of applicants and organs available. At a time when our own people are waiting for transplants, choosing a foreigner is not correct…We have reports where hospitals, particularly in metros like Chennai and Mumbai, gave foreign nationals preference for transplants,” Dr Bhandari said.
Of the 2 lakh in queue for kidneys, only 8,000 manage to get the organ; while only 50 hearts are available for transplants against the demand for 50,000 in a year.
Now, foreigners applying for donated organs have to be registered with NOTTO. Anil Kumar from the Ministry (organ transplant) said States have been asked to send monthly reports on foreigners waiting to receive organs from deceased donors in India. It is preferable that such waiting list is given in real time for the organs for which digital national registry is functional, he added.
“Foreigners shall be considered for organ allocation from deceased Indian donors only when no suitable Indian/NRI/PIO recipient is available throughout the country. Such foreigners have to be registered with endorsement from Embassy concerned. All details like type of visas, passport number, embassy endor-sements, etc, shall be provided to the NOTTO,” said the official.
The decision was taken at a meeting presided over by the head of Directorate General Of Health Services, Promilla Gupta, and attended by the representatives from Regional Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (ROTTO) State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (SOTTO).