ORGAN TRADE IN INDIA

Human organs trade is in the news for quite sometime. According to a report there is a demand of over two lakh kidneys annually but availability through donors is only around 3%. Liver, kidney, pancreas, heart, lung, intestine, cornea etc are the human organs generally transplanted. Organs must be removed as soon as possible after the determination of brain death, while circulation is being maintained artificially. Human organ and tissue transplantation was started in India in 1962. At the initial stage the organ trafficking was rampant as it was not well regulated. The act governing transplantation came into being in 1994 and was subsequently amended in 2011. The new rules came into force in 2014. All relevant aspects like donors, brain death, regulation of transplant activities etc are strictly specified in the law.

Human organs trafficking is caused by the large gap between demand and supply.  There is a demand for over 2.5 lakhs kidney every year in India. Only 3% of this demand could be met through proper channel. Here gets the trafficking door opened. The WHO estimated in 2007 that organ trafficking accounts for 5-10% of kidney transplants performed annually across the globe, and that in India, around 2,000 Indians sell a kidney every year. There is a price for every human organ. Kidneys - USA $2,62,900, China $62,000, India $15,000. Similarly heart, liver, cornea, born marrow, skin etc fetch different prices in different countries. In India Live Cornea Rs 80,000, Skin Rs 1,000 a patch, Cadaver 6,000, full skeleton Rs 10,000 is the price.

According to Indian Express, it has been two years of deafening silence since Express outed a police probe into an organ trade racket that harvested vital organs from a 23 year old accident victim in Kochi. First came the reprieve for the alleged accused. Then came the twist. The reprieve, it seems,  was built on falsehood. It is now emerging that despite a senior doctor revealing in September 2017 that her name and signature were forged by a medical board to give clean chit to the doctors accused of organ harvesting, the state health department and the apex medical board continue to pass the buck.

The worst part of it is the involvement of doctors in organ trafficking. Deepak Shukla, CEO of Pushpavati Singhania Hospital and Research Institute in Delhi, has been charged with the trafficking of organs, criminal conspiracy and cheating, police told The Times of India, in 2019. There are many such cases reported by media in India from time to time. Doctors and other medical personnel alongwith hospitals doing this heinous acts of removing organs from the patients without their knowledge warrant stringent punishment.

KV George

kvgeorgein@gmail.com