Health minister underlines need to amend law to make organ donation easier

HCM CITY — The law on donation, removal and transplantation of human tissues and organs and donation and recovery of cadavers should be amended to streamline procedures and help increase donations to save more lives, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyễn Trường Sơn has said.

Many provisions in it, such as the one on donors’ age, are barriers preventing tissue and organ donation, he said.

His ministry is drafting amendments and would submit them to the National Assembly next year, he said.

The amendments would be in compliance with the Declaration of Istanbul made at the  二00 八 Istanbul Su妹妹it on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism to prevent transplant tourism, trafficking and co妹妹ercialism and provide ethical guidelines for organ donation and transplantation.

The ministry held the conference to collect opinions on the amendments from health experts, he added.

Dr Trần Thị Cẩm Tú, deputy head of the Human Organ Transplantation Centre at Huế Central Hospital, said, “The amended law should allow people from  一 五 years of age instead of [the current]  一 八 to register for organ donation when they are brain dead.”

The Civil Code and Penal Code recognise people aged  一 五 as old enough for many things, she said.

But living donors should be more than  一 八 to donate an organ to a family member to reduce the impact on their health post-donation, she said. 

In the case of donations to strangers for transplantation, the donors should be at least  三0 years old, she said.

She suggested setting up an online system to register for organ donation after brain death to get young prospective donors on board.

Prof Trần Đông A, a counsellor at Children’s Hospital  二, said the law bans organ harvest from brain dead children, reducing the survival chances of child patients who need organs.

Now doctors transplant kidneys taken from adults in children, a difficult task to perform, he said.

Nguyễn Hoàng Phúc of the Vietnam National Coordinating Center for Human Organ Transplantation said: “The number of people needing organ and tissue transplants is very high while the number of donors is low. Many patients die even as they wait for a donor.”

As of last year  四0, 二 五 七 people had registered to donate their organs and tissues in case of brain death, he said.

There are  一00 living donors, while  三 三 九 have registered to donate their cadaver after death, he said. 

So far  五, 五 八 七 people have benefited from organ transplants, he added.

According to the Ministry of Health, nearly  一0,000 people are waiting for kidney transplants alone and thousands of others for other organs.

The conference also discussed the illegal buying and selling of human organs.

On March  九 the ministry had organised a conference in Hà Nội on funding for removal and transplantation of human tissues and organs. — VNS