Goa patient loses out on cadaver donation; probe ordered

Panaji:  A brain dead man’s organs harvested at a private hospital in Goa were taken to Mumbai instead of being donated to a patient waiting for transplant at a state-run hospital, prompting the health department to order an inquiry into it.

In view of this, a senior official of the western region’s organ transplant body, affiliated to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has drawn the attention of the authorities concerned on the need to set up the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) in Goa.

The brain dead man’s organs were harvested at a private hospital near here on Monday and sent to a hospital at Mumbai in the neighbouring Maharashtra, instead of being given to the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).

The state-run GMCH, located close to the private facility where the organs was harvested, claimed that one of its patients was waiting for a kidney transplant.

Goa’s health minister Vishwajit Rane yesterday ordered an inquiry into the matter and formed a team of GMCH officials to investigate why the local patient was not provided the required organ.

Meanwhile, Dr Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, the director of the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), Western Region, Mumbai, yesterday wrote a letter to Goa’s health services director Dr Sanjiv Dalvi over the need to set up the SOTTO.

In the letter, Gajiwala said since the SOTTO has not been set up, the coastal state does not have the approved list of kidney patients waiting for the transplant.

The letter, dated April 10, also said that the state does not have an emergency cross-matching facility, which is required for transplants.

Gajiwala also suggested the state to maintain a criteria-based transplant waiting list for organs and link it to ROTTO and NOTTO.

Notably, the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) has made it mandatory for the states to have their own panels so that the organs and tissues are collected scientifically from donors and provided to patients.

The Goa chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had earlier expressed serious concern over the delay in setting up SOTTO in the state.