Centre asks hospitals to create permanent transplant coordinator post

The National Organ Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO), under the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW), has directed all hospitals conducting organ transplants to create permanent posts of ‘transplant coordinators’.
The NOTTO letter stated that no hospital will be registered unless the facility has appointed transplant coordinators with the necessary qualifications and experience. 
Mint reported in 2023 that the Union Health Ministry planned to make it mandatory for all hospitals with organ transplantation facilities to appoint transplant coordinators.
The move aims to address the acute shortage of such professionals in the country, with no centralized database with the government.
Under the current National Organ Transplant Programme (NOTP) (2020-21 to 2025-26), there is a provision for supporting government medical colleges with two transplant coordinators and good-performing private medical colleges with one transplant coordinator. The commitment for these positions is for five years. During this period, state governments or medical colleges are expected to create permanent posts for these roles.
“However, it has come to our notice, that no significant efforts have been made towards the creation of regular transplant coordinators posts in the states/institutions,” said Anil Kumar, director, NOTTO, in the 8 October letter seen by Mint.
He added that “all hospitals/institutes are informed that requests for providing support for transplant coordinators under the NOTP would not be considered beyond 2024-25 from hospitals that have already surpassed the five-year period.”
The transplant coordinator plays an important role in coordinating the entire process of deceased organ donation and transplantation. This includes brain stem death identification, certification, grief counselling and encouraging family members to donate organs, consent for organ donation, coordination between donor and recipient hospitals, liaising with various retrieval teams, recipient and donor matching, logistics management, ensuring the smooth operation of all aspects of organ retrieval, packing, etc., and providing support to the donor’s family.
India carries out the third-highest organ transplants and second-highest corneal transplants in the world. In 2023, more than 1,000 deceased organs were donated for the first time. However, the organ donation rate is still less than 1 per million. 
According to health ministry data, the total number of organ transplants done per year in the country has increased from 4,990 in 2013 to 17,168 in 2023. This data includes both live and deceased organs.
Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered.