Press Trust Of India
Panaji, Oct 20: The Goa chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has expressed serious concern over the delay in setting up an Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) in the state.
Dr Medha Salkar, the IMA state president, said as a donor she would not like her organs to be wasted after her death. She also demanded that the kin of the brain dead patients be allowed to take them to other states for the retrieval of their organs.
“Even if SOTTO Goa is not formed, I want my organs to be retrieved and transplanted to any needy human being through the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), but definitely not burnt and wasted away,” Salkar said at a function recently.
Goa’s health minister Vishwajit Rane, however, said the state government is in the process of forming the SOTTO.
“We have made it clear that the organ harvesting and transplant facilities would first start in Goa Medical College and Hospital before allowing it the private hospitals to do it,” he said Friday.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, at a recent conference of medical professionals, had said that SOTTO Goa would be operational within one month.
The health minister had recently said that Goa government will not allow any private hospital to be registered for kidney transplant till the state-run Goa Medical College and Hospital sets up such a facility.
