Organ Donations Surge: Maharashtra Boosts Deceased Donors

In recent months, Maharashtra's health department has intensified efforts to boost organ donations from deceased individuals, as directed by Health Minister Prakash Abitkar. The goal is to decrease the dependence on live donors and address the significant organ shortage. Meetings and workshops involving government and private hospitals in cities like Aurangabad, Nanded, Thane, and Pune have been conducted to improve coordination and family counselling.

A state-level consultation in Pune on February 9, guided by Minister Abitkar, saw participation from over 125 doctors and hospital representatives. Discussions focused on the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (THOTA), emphasizing mandatory registration and reporting of brain-death cases by private hospitals. Officials stressed the moral responsibility of hospitals to facilitate donations while ensuring ethics and transparency to prevent illegal organ trade.

Officials also highlighted the necessity for urgent reforms, citing growing waiting lists and preventable patient deaths. The strategy involves shifting focus to brain-dead deceased donations, addressing social hesitation, and creating trained grief-counselling teams. Maharashtra has 132 organ transplant centers and 47 retrieval centers, yet many are underperforming, contributing to the demand-supply gap. Stricter monitoring and capacity-building programs are planned to maximize organ retrieval from each deceased donor.