VIPs are ok, but what about common man? 
India Has A Poor Record In Organ Donation

(The Times of India, 14-08-2012, p.03)

Mumbai: Gujarat chief minister Narenda Modi’s tweet about his health officials looking for a cadaveric liver donation for ailing Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh—before Monday’s developments in Chennai—has been the topic of discussion in the medical fraternity. 
    Many doctors hope it will not only bring the spotlight on the poor rate of cadaver donation in the country, but also highlight the pathetic coordination between various states in this regard. It is, for instance, not easy for a solid organ such as the liver to be packed from Mumbai to Delhi or vice-versa. Most states—except for Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka—do not even have a state-governmentrun organization to coordinate a cadaver donation programme. “At present, there are no guideline on who should be talking to whom. Doctors from private hospitals talk to their counterparts in other states and transfer organs, with ethics taking a backseat and monetary considerations as the only guiding light,” said a doctor. 
    A cadaveric donation occurs when the family of a patient who has been declared brain dead agrees to donate his or her organs (mainly kidneys and liver). But the numbers in most states except Tamil Nadu are extremely low. Mumbai, which was the first in the country to set up an official body, called the Zonal Transplantation Coordination Centre, to oversee cadaveric organ donations, registers less than 20 such donations a year. 
    In 2004, an attempt to send a liver from Mumbai to Pune failed as no proper rules had been drawn up for the purpose. More recently, Chennai’s heart transplant surgeon K Cherian wrote to the Maharashtra government complaining about hearts not being retrieved in Mumbai’s hospitals. 
    In contrast, the US, which is geographically much bigger than India, has a central organ bank that coordinates about patients who are to receive organs. 
Times View: Free cadaver donation from red tape T he cadaver donation and organ transplant mechanism in India needs tobe unshackled immediately from red tape. Too much of bureaucratese and arbitrariness are the twin problems that block life-saving transplants in most states in India. The Gujarat government’s move to help the ailing Vilasrao Deshmukh is welcome; but this should be rule for everyone and not an exception for the privileged.