Government employees will soon be given the option to pledge their organs on their identity cards.
Government employees will soon be given the option to pledge their organs on their identity cards. In a bid to fill the gap between the enormous demand and dismal supply of human organs for donation, the government is considering donor information be listed on the identity card of government employees. The ministry of road transport and highways is also mulling earmarking a designated space on driver’s licences indicating the driver’s “will” to donate organs.
“Discussions are on as to which existing rule should be tweaked to incorporate such a change (on driver’s licences). For I-cards of government employees, we have suggested if a Y&N column can be incorporated,” said a senior health ministry official.
According to officials, such a provision could help sort out the problem of shortage of organ donation to a large extent. “The move is to cut the gap between the ever-growing demand and shortage of organ donation in the country. The critical cases are mostly accidental. The pledge on the driving licence could help the relatives understand that one who is dead wanted to donate organs or not. The insertion on the driving licence or I cards will be an indication for the doctor that he needs to cross-check with the family members regarding the ‘will’ of the deceased. This topic otherwise is not even touched even in case people dying in road accidents,” added the official.
The same model runs successfully in the West, with many countries introducing “donor cards” too. Doctors welcome the move as according to them, an I-card or a driving licence can become a legally-valid document for pledging organs.
Each year, a large number of people die while waiting for an organ transplant. There is a shortage of organs, with the gap between the number of organs donated and the number of people waiting for a transplant increasing. According to recent data, almost 1.5 lakh people in India need a kidney, but only 3,000 of them receive one. Only one out of 30 people who need a kidney receive one.
About 90% of people in the waiting list die without getting an organ. While India’s annual liver transplant requirement is 25,000, only 800 such cases could be tackled. Seventy per cent liver transplants are taken care of by a live donor, but 30% are dependent on cadaver donations.
