The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the government of Maharashtra to file an affidavit before the court and inform it if it was possible to have a central database where pairs looking to undergo a swap transplant can register themselves in the hope of finding another suitable donor-recipient pair and also if it was possible to relax rules for kidney transplants where close relatives are not involved.
The division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice Revati Mohite-Dere asked the government to file a reply within four weeks while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Narmada Kidney Foundation and others working for providing support and guidance to patients suffering from kidney diseases and also to spread awareness among people to prevent these diseases.
Petitioner’s lawyer on Wednesday told the court that there were not many problems in swap kidney transplantations when a donor and patient is a close relative, but there are a lot of hindrances when the donor and the patient are not close relatives. He claimed that sometimes people have to wait for four to six months to get a nod from the State Authorisation Committee to get transplantation done. According to him, this period is too long for such patients and there are chances a patient would lose his/her life and hence there is a need to relax the rules.
The petition has contended that there is no commercial element involved in the process of swap transplantation and hence donors and patients should not be asked to furnish last three years’ income proof. The petition has urged for a central database of donors and patients who want to go for a swap transplantation.
The bench observed that this issue needs to be regulated. However, it also said it should also be seen if there is any possibility to relax some rules if possible so that a decision for transplantation could be taken in lesser time.
