MADURAI: The Director of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS) submitted a status report to the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday, stating that in light of the recent kidney trafficking reports, the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) has constituted a working group to improve the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the functioning of the district-level authorisation committees on the approval of human organ transplants in the state.
The DMS, on July 21, already called for the details and particulars on live donor kidney transplantations from all four district-level authorisation committees, Chennai, Madurai, Dharmapuri and Coimbatore. Based on the recommendations of the project director of Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP), the DME was further recommended to ensure that appropriate medical and legal advice is provided to the donors and recipients before the committee approves the transplantation surgery.
Besides, steps are also being taken to reorganise the district committees and form a new state-level authorisation committee. Further, the report stated that a circular should be issued to the revenue, police and health departments, all licensed hospitals and doctors that organ transplantation surgery-related documents should be preserved for at least 10 years.
The recommendations further included mandatory video recording of interviews of the donors and recipients, availability of all transplant forms in Tamil and English, among others. For curbing organ transplant from live donors, the government has initiated steps to streamline or improve the implementation of the Transplantation of the Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994, in Tamil Nadu, the DMS added.
The 17-page report was submitted on a PIL filed by advocate S N Sathishwaran, seeking CBI probe into the kidney trafficking incidents.