Implementation of the Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act and its guidelines in proper manner, making the doctors follow professional ethics, can to some extent curb organ donation racket.

Nephrologist and Vice-Chancellor of NTR University of Health Sciences T. Raviraju made these observations reacting to the recent alleged kidney donation scam in which medical director of SevenHills hospital was arrested by the Odisha police.

“Self-regulation is needed. More effective supervision by the authorities dealing with donation of organs is necessary. There is a need to give wide publicity to the Act and people must also know that it is a crime to give an organ for monetary or other benefit. Doctors must follow professional ethics and they must be inculcated from the time a student joins MBBS,” Dr. Raviraju told The Hindu on Friday. Every hospital performing transplantation surgeries should have its own committee and thoroughly verify applications received from donors and acceptors. The hospitals werere also required to send monthly reports to the Director of Medical Education on the surgeries performed but they were not doing so.

“ If there are more organ donations from deceased donors, dependency on living donors will decrease and scams will not take place,” said Dr. Raviraju. It was during his tenure as DME of (combined) AP that the Jeevandaan programme was launched in 2010 to promote cadaver donation in a streamlined manner.