Organ Donation: Maharashtra Government does away with NOC

The Maharashtra government has taken a step towards making organ donation between close family members much easier. On Friday, the state government had decided to do away with the no-objection certificate (NOC) stipulation. The decision to finally do away with the NOC came after Dr Bharat Shah moved the Bombay high court against the need for the NOC for interstate transplants when the donor and recipient were related. He said 'The problem is that this NOC was interpreted and followed differently in different states. Some states never insist on paperwork if the donor and recipient are related'.

Dr Bharath Shah decided to move the court to do away with this rule, after his patient Anil, a 50-year-old kidney patient from Bangalore, spent two months running from one government office to another to gather 63 pages of proof that he is a law-abiding resident of Karnataka. He had to go to the police station a number of times, and entertain police officers at his house in order to establish that he was really required the Kidney transplant.

When Anil found out about the new ruling, he had mixed feelings. According to him, if the ruling had been made a few days earlier he would not have had to run around and spend money on dialysis as well as travel which he could have used for better medical care. Dr Shah said that he had moved the high court because of the plight of his patients who hailed from economically poor economic backgrounds. He felt that the need for a speedy transplant procedure because many poor patients often get conned by touts who promise them a speedy process and they end up wasting the little money that they have.

For a number of patients and their doctors, this news calls for celebration. Hinduja Hospital's nephrologist Jatin Kothari says that the ruling will be a boon for patients. He is also a member of the Zonal Transplantation Coordination Committee. He said securing an NOC adds six to eight weeks to any transplant. Dr Kothari said that one of his patients from Uttar Pradesh had to wait for eight months to get permission to receive a kidney from his own sister. City doctors are hopeful that several patients will benefit from this amendment, and that it is implemented at the earliest.

With the red tape around organ donations done away with in Maharashtra, the process is likely to become a much faster and less tedious. The industry of black market organ transplant is still a very real problem in the field of healthcare, and laws regarding the trade have to be made more stringent. Although the previous law was in place to avoid any kind of malpractice, this law will tread a fine line between being a boon or a bane for the medical fraternity.

Also read: Organ donation: Rules you should know