Direct eye banks, hospitals to register tissue, cornea transplants with NOTTO: Centre to states

New Delhi, Nov 24: The Centre has asked states to direct eye banks and hospitals performing tissue or cornea transplants to mandatorily link and register such procedures with the national registry maintained by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO).

The hospitals and eye banks will be required to share data on the number of patients waiting for tissue and cornea transplants, the number of donations and transplantations performed as well as the number of tissue and cornea stored and utilised.

Just like the waiting lists for transplant of organs such as liver and kidney can be seen on the centralised platform, the list of patients waiting for cornea transplants will also be made available, a senior official said.

"The appropriate authority of each state should also collect data on tissue/cornea donation and transplantation from all such registered centres and furnish the same to NOTTO every month," a letter from NOTTO Director Dr Anil Kumar to all states and Union Territories said.

It stated that the necessity for a centralised registry system for cornea donation, retrieval and distribution was highlighted in a meeting held under the chairmanship of the Director General of Health Services on May 14.

The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 (THOTA) mandates that the Central government maintains a national registry for organ and tissue donors and recipients.

"All tissue transplants, including cornea, transplant centres and tissue banks, including eye banks registered by appropriate authorities in states, are required to link with the national registry maintained by NOTTO and share the data related to the list of patients waiting for tissue/cornea transplant, number of tissue/cornea donation and transplantation and number of tissue/cornea stored and utilized," the letter stated.

It also noted that there are many non-performing eye banks that have been granted registration. According to THOTA rules, 2014, a minimum of 500 corneas are to be collected in five years by each eye bank.

"The appropriate authority of state is requested to examine the data on eye/cornea collection annually by the registered eye banks and in case of less performance, the authority can consider issuing a warning notice to the eye bank for augmenting their eye donation activities otherwise in case of under-performance their renewal may not be considered for the next term.

"We request your prompt action and an action taken report may please be submitted to the office of the Director NOTTO," the letter stated.

It underlined that under the provisions of THOTA, 1994, registration for cornea retrieval is not required. However, eye banks will have to now provide the list of their associated/feeder cornea donation and retrieval centres to authorities in states and that in turn should be provided to the NOTTO.

Further, eye banks will be required to take the responsibility of maintenance of required standards as per THOTA, 1994, by associated/feeder Cornea donation/retrieval centres, the letter said.