Emphasizing on the increasing incidence of end stage renal diseases, in the conference of Renal healthcare professionals (COREP) held in Mumbai last week, doctors said that the only way to improve transplants is to increase the health budget and make transplant law less stringent.

Transplantation of Human Organs Act was passed in 1994 and rules were made in 1995. These rules have been recently amended in 2008. The main purpose of the act was to regulate transplants and promote deceased (cadaver) donor organ transplant. However, too stringent measures have made transplants very difficult even in genuine cases say doctors.

Dr Bharat Shah, nephrologist and founder of Narmada Kidney Foundation said, "When donor, recipient and place of transplantation are from different states, it is mandatory for donor and recipient to get NOC from respective domicile state Government. This is bringing in bureaucracy in medical treatment. This makes it very difficult for the patient and his family who are going through a difficult illness."

Dr Umesh Khanna, organising secretary of the Mumbai Kidney Foundation said, "As it stands today, if there is a potential brain-dead donor in a medical center in a small city, the potential donor has to be moved to a government recognized center in a big city for organ retrieval. The team from the government recognized center cannot go to the peripheral medical center for organ harvesting. Very often the family of deceased donor is reluctant to transfer the case to a recognized center and thus many potential donors are lost. The result is that many organs are wasted and many lives are lost."

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