22 September,2016 12:10 PM IST | | mid-day online correspondent
The National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) on Wednesday allowed an ailing man to get a kidney from his brain dead younger brother on humanitarian grounds, in what was a landmark judgment
The National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) on Wednesday allowed an ailing man to get a kidney from his brain dead younger brother on humanitarian grounds, in what was a landmark judgment. The decision bypassed rules of the transplant Act.
The lawyer, Nitin Vhatkar, requested the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) to allocate his brain dead brother's kidney to him by jumping the organ waitlist, timesofindia reported. Nitin suffers from endstage renal failure, and had been on dialysis for more than two years. ZTCC had initially turned down the request citing the law, but NOTTO came to Nitin's rescue.
Dr Jagdish Prasad, who heads NOTTO, was quoted by timesofindia as saying, "It was an exceptional case, a dilemma we have never had before. The man is dying of renal failure.And here he is getting an organ from his own brother. Where is the question of saying no, especially when he has expressed his willingness to donate for others?" Prasad, who is also the director general of health services, said amendments will be made to the Transplantation of the Human Organ Act rules to accommodate similar requests from donor families in future.
"We cannot change the Act but we can amend the rules. We have to allow this provision to immediate members of organ donors. We will begin by defining 'close relatives' so that agencies don't hesitate to allow such cases," he further told timesofindia.
More lives were saved thanks to the landmark decision as a 27-year-old woman received the heart. It is being reported that the NOTTO order could lead to amendments in transplant rules.
