Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: After discussing each aspect of the Transplant of Human Organs and Tissue Act Amendment Bill 2017, the Standing Committee of the Lower House on Thursday agreed on the establishment of a committee comprising professionals and technical experts.

The committee will keep a check on all hospitals providing such treatments. The meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSR&C) presided over by its Chairman, Khalid Hussain Magsi, was attended by parliamentarians including the Health and Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) officials, Human Organs and Transplant Authority (HOTA), Islamabad.

They all agreed upon the formulation of a committee that would comprise experts having great experience in the relevant field. The committee will keep a check and balance on the activities of all the 13 hospitals in the country that are providing human organs transplant services. The hospitals violating the HOTA Act rules will be given prescribed punishment.

There is no particular mechanism of monitoring in the hospitals for checking the human transplant activities. The HOTA departments have some nominal teams for this purpose. However, these teams have no proper training and qualification. Most of the officials of the teams are clerics.

The committee will have a legal status as it will be included in the HOT Act Amendment Bill 2017. According to the decision, the committee will be headed by the Vice Chancellor Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) and all members will be taken on voluntary basis. While discussing the academic qualifications of the committee members, the Minister NHSR&C, Saira Afzal Tarar, said that every member of the committee should not have less than a Master’s Degree with good practical field experience. She further explained that the members would be either full volunteers or will be paid just nominal charges in the form of TA/DA. All the members of the committee endorsed the idea.

Besides agreeing on the formulation of the committee, the members proposed some other relevant ideas for inclusion in the HOTA Act Amendment Bill 2017.

HOTA Administrator, Ishtaiq A Malik, suggested that the technicalities of the transplant cases should be addressed, adding that in 45 countries of the world none had this broken system. “No matter how hard you try, whatever you do, nothing will be able to produce results at the national level”, he claimed. He quoted a published date that states Pakistan is at No 2 place in the world in the illegal trade of human organs. Malik revealed that human organs were available in every location of each province of the country.

“Many doctors are also involved in such illegal business” he alleged.

He further said that for the voluntary participation, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) should be signed with all provinces and territories. The committee chairman and members including Minister Tarar endorsed this suggestion. Malik said that the participation of HOTA should follow the regulations of federal HOTA and the provincial HOTA may formulate some sort of regulations. However, these regulations should not conflict with the Federal HOTA rules.

The HOTA Amendment Bill 2017 was initially prepared and presented by the ministry of NHSRE&C in January this year. In the bill some 23 items were proposed for amendments and insertions. A proposed amendment states that “notwithstanding anything contained in any other for time being in forces, a living donor who is not less than 18 years age, may during his lifetime voluntarily donate any organ or tissue of his body, to another living person genetically and legally related who is a close blood relative and the donation of organs or part of tissue by such persons therapeutic purpose shall e regulated in the manner as may be prescribed in the case of regenerative tissue that are called stem cells and there is no restriction of age between siblings”. In an important insertion, the ministry proposed in the bill that every transplant case must be forwarded to the Human Organs Transplant Authority for necessary approval before the transplant procedure.