NEW DELHI: Minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi has written to health minister JP Nadda suggesting measures that can help motivate more people to come forward to commit to organ donation.

In a letter also marked to finance minister Piyush Goyal , Gandhi has suggested that health insurance policy holders should be given a discount in the premium if he or she agrees to donate the organs in the event of death in a hospital during treatment.

“I am sure that the health insurance companies as well as the hospitals will welcome this discount in the insurance premiums,” Gandhi has said in her letter. She has called for the need to work with a team of experts to put in place measures necessary in view of the growing disease burden.

Gandhi has also suggested changes in the form that every patient who undergoes a procedure in the hospital has to fill up. This form has many declarations and clauses. “We should mandatorily add a clause stating that in case of the death of the patient in the hospital whether he/she would like the organs to be harvested for the purpose of giving a new life to other patients,” Gandhi has written.

She goes on to point that she is “conscious that this will cause a little stress to the patients and the family” but she was sure that “even if 10% of the patients sign this declaration, we will have enough organs to save lakhs of lives”. She goes on to emphasise on the need to immediately set-up organ retrieval facilities in big government hospitals in major locations to overcome the shortage of such facilities.

“It is estimated that 3 -3.5 lakh patients are waiting for an organ at any point of time in India. The availability of organs, through the legitimate routes is much less than this. As a result, either the patient dies due to non availability of organs or they resort to illegal methods,” Gandhi has said to drive home the urgency for measures.

“Currently, India has very limited availability of organs for transplanting which is limited to cadaver harvesting and a minuscule voluntary donation. Even in the case of voluntary donation it is generally the woman of the family - wife, sister, mother who is forced to donate her kidney or liver to the man in the family,” the WCD minister has pointed. She added that it is estimated that there are at least one hundred thousand illegal kidney transplants done in the world and a major portion of it happens in India.

Gandhi writes, “recently India has been declared as the diabetes capital of the world. Since diabetes has effect on the kidneys, the incidence of kidney failure is going to be much more in coming years. This has led to a thriving illegal market for kidney transplants which is in national news every now and then.”

