Gujarat will not be able to donate hearts to other states, at least for some time now. The Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (ROTTO) in Maharashtra, which administers western India zone, has refused to accept any organs from Gujarat till it frames an organ donation policy and forms a State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (SOTTO). Confirming the embargo as well as the conditions placed by ROTTO, Dr MM Prabhakar, human organ transplant authority for Gujarat, told Mirror, “We are working post-haste and are aiming at finishing the paperwork in two months.”Dr Vimal Bhandari, director of National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO), the competent body for all organ donations, harvesting and transplant in the country, slammed the Gujarat government for its lackadaisical attitude towards organ donation. “There are no clear-cut guidelines in Gujarat. We don’t know how many centres are registered, whether regulations formed by NOTTO are being followed, if there are competent teams to retrieve organs,” he said.Sources at the ROTTO said that a major trigger for this move was the incident in Goa on April 5 this year, when kidneys of the first-ever organ donor were flown out of the state to be transplanted into two recipients in Maharashtra despite the Goa having patients in need of the organ. So far, only five hearts have been transplanted within Gujarat. As many as 14 have been successfully transplanted in recipients in other states, with 12 going to Maharashtra, one to Indore in Madhya Pradesh and one to Chennai in Tamil Nadu.ROTTO has strictly enforced new regulations whereby organs will not be accepted from NGOs. While the new rule applies to all donated organs, the main problem lies with hearts as there are only two hospitals registered as transplant centres in Gujarat and often there are no takers for the organ within the state.Since the decision of embargo was taken, at least five hearts have already been wasted. “Between June 3 and June 14, as many as 13 kidneys, 6 livers and 10 corneas were harvested from seven donors and transplanted into 29 other patients. At least five hearts could have been transplanted. We asked CIMS and SAL hospitals if they had recipients but since they didn’t, we let them go as we were told that NGOs can no longer solicit ROTTO for inter-state transplants,” said Nilesh Mandlewala of Donate Life, an NGO working for organ donation.

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