Gender Skew in Organ Transplants: Analyzing NOTTO's New Priority Policy
UPSC Relevance
Prelims: Social Justice & Health (Key bodies like NOTTO, Acts like the Transplantation of Human Organs Act), Current Events of National Importance.
Mains:
GS Paper 1: Role of women and women’s organization; Social empowerment.
GS Paper 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health; Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population; Mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections (women).
GS Paper 4 (Ethics): Ethical issues in healthcare, Distributive Justice, Gender equality, Natural Justice.
Key Highlights from the News
Main Policy: The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) has issued a new advisory. According to this, women patients waiting for organ transplants and the relatives of deceased organ donors will be given priority.
Reason Behind the Policy: The aim is to address the severe gender imbalance existing in the organ transplant sector in India.
Statistics of Gender Imbalance:
In 2023, 63% of living organ donors were women. However, the number of women recipients was significantly lower (e.g., 37% in kidney transplants).
According to the British Medical Journal, in the last five years, 36,038 living organ donors were women, but only 17,041 women received organs.
Challenges and Concerns:
Current organ allocation rules prioritize only health parameters. Therefore, this new policy might lead to procedural hassles.
There is concern that this priority system might be misused for illegal organ trafficking (out-of-turn allotments).
Article's Stance: Although the intention of this policy is good, it should not deviate from the fundamental principle of ensuring that the patient with the greatest medical need receives the organ.
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