Regulation resolve: Hospitals with transplant facility to be monitored

Committee will include a medical professor and Health EDO and DCO concerned

LAHORE: A regulatory system will be evolved to control illegal human organ transplantation and to award exemplary punishment to those found involved in such activities.

Monitoring and evaluation committees would be formed at the district level to oversee affairs of hospitals equipped with facilities to undertake organs transplantation surgeries. The committee would ensure that transplants were performed in accordance with the law. The DCOs would be put in charge of these committees. Other members would include a professor from a medical college and the Health EDO concerned. The committees would be authorised to conduct surprise raids at these hospitals and required to send regular reports to the Punjab Human Organs Transplant Authority (PHOTA). Necessary laws would be enacted for the purpose.

These decisions were taken on Tuesday in a meeting chaired by Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Secretary Najam Ahmad Shah.

The meeting also considered suggestions regarding rewards for those reporting illegal organ transplant cases to the authority and penalties on hospitals and doctors involved in such activity. It was suggested that those reporting incidents of illegal organ transplant to the PHOTA would be given a reward of Rs 1million. A telephone line would be set up where such cases could be reported. The meeting proposed that hospitals and doctors caught performing an illegal transplant should be fined up to Rs50 million.

The meeting decided that the monitoring and evaluation committees would verify that qualified surgeons and other human resources were available to the hospital and that the recipient and the donor were both approved by the PHOTA.

The meeting decided that it would be mandatory for hospitals to provide photographs of donors and recipients and a video recording of the surgery for verification to the PHOTA. The hospitals would also be required to perform post-operation medical examinations of donors and recipients before discharging them.

Others present on the occasion were King Edward Medical University Vice Chancellor Faisal Masood, Health Special Secretary Sajid Mahmood Chohan, Planning and Development Board Member (Health) Shabana Haider and Health Additional Secretary (Development) Zaheer Abbas Malik.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2016.