Union government is setting up a nation wide network of Organ Retrieval Bank Organization (ORBOs) nodal centres to retrieve the organs from brain dead patients. The 10 cities identified for the project are Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Lucknow, Bhopal and Guwahati. Each centre will be set-up at an investment of Rs 15 crore each and will be commissioned in early 2008 under the National Organ Transplantation Programme.

The nodal centres of ORBOs would serve as a central organ registry and retrieval centres. Union Minister for health and Family Welfare told Pharmabiz. The ORBO will receive the information from the hospitals across the country about the brain dead cases. The nearest ORBO centre will arrange to send the grief counselors to talk to the patient's family. Once the family expresses consent, the process of organ retrieval is started to facilitate appropriate transplantation of organs. This will form part of the government's efforts in promoting cadaver organ donation. "Currently only 0.1 per cent of our transplantations are cadaver. We have a long way to go", stated the Union health minister.

The amendments to the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (TOHO) would be placed before the Parliament during the budget session. For the present, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has been given the responsibility to make the recommendations to amend the TOHO Act in an effort to strengthen its implementation and make transparent, added the Union minister for health and family welfare.

Another effort by the government is to provide incentives to the family members of cadaver donors, awards and free railway passes. The strengthening of the Organ ORBO and creating at least six more ORBO centres apart from the existing ones in the country and actively promoting the cadaver and organ donation programme would be the main thrust areas of the Transplantation of the Human Organ Act, stated doctors at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, BGS Global Hospital and MS Ramaiah Memorial Hospital.

After much discussion with the experts, the Transplantation of the Human Organ Act of 1994 is in the final stages of implementation in its new version to make the trading in organs mainly kidneys difficult and to facilitate a push for the cadaver organ donation programme. To give a thrust to the cadaver organ donation programme, hospitals with Intensive Care Units (ICUs) will be certified as organ retrieval centres and appointment of transplant coordinators at all transplant centres would be made mandatory, stated Prof. D Nagaraja, director and vice chancellor, NIMHANS.

Dr Sudarshan Ballal, director Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology, said that cadevaer organ transplant accounted for less than 0.5 per cent of all kidney transplants in India. These days organ transplant is mired in ugly controversies and inadequate regulatory environment, he added.