The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked States to direct all registered organ transplant hospitals to reveal post-transplant survival data and publish the same on their respective websites. 

The data that have not been made public so far would reveal the success rate of organ transplant surgeries, especially kidney, lung and heart transplants, in terms of lifespan of patients post the procedure and enable patients to take a decision or make a choice based on the results. 

The hospitals were also told to strictly adhere to informed consent requirements and ensure that all relevant information regarding transplant procedures, risks, and outcomes is adequately disclosed to patients and their families.

In a note to Health Secretaries of all States/Union Territories, the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), which functions under the Directorate-General of Health Services, referred to a letter written by Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta, on the need to enhance transparency and accountability in kidney transplantation outcomes.

The MP, who is also the Karnataka BJP State secretary, had emphasised the need for tracking long-term transplant outcomes, including graft survival, complications, and mortality, as well as disclosure of post-transplant survival data by hospitals and strict adherence to informed consent and patient communication protocols.

NOTTO maintains the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Registry, which includes the data of kidney transplant donors and recipients. Its Director Anil Kumar said in the note that regular and comprehensive reporting of post-transplant data would strengthen monitoring of transplant outcomes, improve traceability, and support evidence-based policy decisions. 

Display on websites

Registered transplant hospitals across the country were told to display the crucial data on the home page of their respective websites. The process was part of initiatives taken to strengthen transparency, accountability, and outcome monitoring in organ transplantation nationwide.

Limited informational value

When asked for his views on the development, a senior transplant surgeon in Chennai said crude mortality rates had very limited informational value for individual patients wanting to make a choice of hospitals.

“Until risk-stratified mortality outcomes that have been duly scrutinised in an unbiased manner are available both from government and private hospitals, it will be near impossible to make informed choices,” he said. 

The data hospitals have been told to publish - number of patients alive after six months, one year, three years and five years - would be extremely difficult to collate as there was no mechanism for such follow-up work. 

“Deaths post-transplant happen due to a variety of reasons such as age, comorbidities and other risk factors. Even if post-survival data are shared by hospitals, it would be challenging to authenticate the veracity of the claims,” he said.