In a bid to actively promote organ donation among people, the central government has decided to give preference to donors in case the donor or an immediate relative requires a kidney transplantation.
The guidelines were released by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with an aim to incentivise organ donation.
According to a report by the Times of India, more than two lakh people require kidney transplant every year in India but only about 6,000 are able to undergo the life-saving procedure due to paucity of organs. According to a report by IANS, experts have stated that in India approximately 75,000 patients are on dialysis and the number is growing at the rate of 10-20 per cent annually.
Sensing the huge disparity between number of recipients requiring kidney transplant and the organs available for transplantation, the government has put out a list of new guidelines:
- All the patients will have to be registered by the concerned hospital.
- The recipients must be less than 75 years of age.
- Kidney advisory committee will approve registration and urgency criteria.
- Points will be allocated through which recipients will be selected.
- A previous living kidney donor or his immediate relative now requiring kidney transplant would get 5 points.
- Recipients less than 6 years of age will get three points.
(Feature image is representational | Source: Reuters)