Context: The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) recently issued a direction stating that women patients and relatives of deceased donors will receive priority in organ allocation. This is part of a 10-point advisory aimed at addressing gender disparity in organ transplants and encouraging donations.
Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: State of Organ Donation in India and world.Mains: Gender Disparity in Organ Transplants in India.
India’s Organ Transplant Paradox
A study in the British Medical Journal titled “India’s organ transplant paradox: women donate the most and receive the least” highlighted striking imbalances:
- Between 2019 and 2023, 63.8% of all living organ donors in India were women. In the same period, men accounted for 69.8% of all organ recipients, showing a stark gender gap.
- Out of 56,509 living organ donations made in the last five years, 36,038 donations came from women. However, only 17,041 transplants were performed on women, while 39,447 transplants went to men.
This indicates that women form the majority of donors but remain a minority among recipients.
Legal Framework for Organ Donation in India:
- The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (THOTA) 1994 provides the basic legal framework for organ donation and transplantation in India.
- The Act permits organ donation by both living donors and deceased (brain-stem dead) donors, subject to strict medical and ethical conditions.
- It prohibits commercial trade in human organs, making buying or selling of organs a punishable offence with stringent financial and judicial penalties.
- An amendment in 2011 expanded the scope of the law to include the donation of human tissues.
The Act has established the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) as the apex body to oversee Organ donation. All hospitals engaged in organ retrieval or transplantation be registered and linked with NOTTO.
Status of Organ Donation:
- According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) around 1,30,000 solid organ transplants are performed worldwide each year, but this meets only about 10% of the global demand.
- Countries with streamlined donor systems and higher public awareness, such as Spain and the U.S., have achieved much better organ donation rates.
- In India, the demand-supply gap is severe. Every year, nearly 1.8 lakh people develop end-stage kidney disease, but only around 12,000 kidney transplants are performed. Due to this shortage, a large number of patients are forced to remain on dialysis or face premature death.
- An organ donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation and can help many more through tissue donation such as corneas, skin, and bones.
However, lack of awareness, cultural myths, and hesitation to discuss organ donation within families remain the biggest obstacles in organ donation.