The institution of posthumous donation begins to develop in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The State Duma, together with the Ministry of Health, has developed a draft law aimed at developing the field of posthumous donation. At the moment in Russia there is a presumption of consent to the removal of organs after death, but this principle does not fully work due to technical problems. In particular, the document envisages the creation of a register of donors, recipients and donor organs.

In Russia, the presumption of consent to posthumous donation may be introduced. Dmitry Morozov, Chairman of the State Duma Health Protection Committee, spoke about this.

The draft law on transplantation was prepared by the State Duma together with the Ministry of Health and the professional community, but Morozov specified that the text of the document would be discussed in detail.

The bill for the first time establishes in the country the basic principles of donation of human organs for transplantation. It is published on the federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts.

“The initiative presupposes the presumption of consent for posthumous donation. That is, a person can become a donor if he did not express either written or oral - under certain conditions - a refusal during his lifetime, or his relatives did not give this refusal within three hours after he was diagnosed with brain death,”the deputy explained. in an interview with Parlamentskaya Gazeta.

He clarified that the bill specifies in detail the obligation of medical workers after the death of a patient's brain to inform his relatives about the intention to remove organs from the deceased. If the deceased has no relatives, the issue will be resolved with the help of councils.

The document also establishes a list of organs for transplantation, both in vivo and posthumous donation.

The draft law will be sent to the interested federal executive authorities in the field of regional health protection, and then re-submitted to the government. The Ministry of Health said that the law on organ donation could come into force on June 1, 2021.

Member of the State Duma Health Protection Committee Alexei Kurinny, in a conversation with RT, said that the presumption of consent is the practice of most countries where donation is most actively developing.

“If we talk about the presumption of consent, then it existed before that. This principle is also applied in the new law. Some technical details are being introduced related to the consent of relatives, lifetime refusal or lifetime consent to donation and the formation of an appropriate register, said Kurinny.

He added that in terms of the number of transplants, Russia is an order of magnitude behind states with an actively developing sphere of donation. The MP noted that he considers the initiative to be justified and aimed at increasing the number of transplants without limiting human rights.

Physician Lyudmila Lapa, in an interview with RT, expressed the opinion that when adopting such a bill, the main thing is to come to an agreement with people.

“If this initiative saves lives, as a doctor, I am on the side of such an innovation. It is important to conduct educational work so that loved ones can accept it. You need a good psychologist to work so that people do not get additional trauma. It is important to observe the ethics of relations in such a matter,”said the doctor.

She noted that when implementing the initiative, it is very important to avoid abuse and maintain constant monitoring.

In September, the president of the public organization "Collective Defense" Marat Amanliev proposed to amend the law "On transplantation of human organs and (or) tissues", which has been in force since 1992. The initiative was about changing the rules for the removal of organs and tissues from living donors. To date, voluntary consent to the removal of a transplant from a person can be given only if it is a question of transplanting it to a genetic relative. For example, spouses cannot donate a necessary organ to each other even in a critical situation and in the case of full medical compatibility, since they are relatives only legally, but not by blood.

In this regard, it was proposed to expand this norm and provide an opportunity in urgent cases to help not only blood relatives, but also all actual family members.

Earlier, the head of Rusfond Lev Ambinder said in an interview with RT that donation in Russia is developing, but the size of the database in the country is still incomparable with the world.

“About 42 years ago, the first immune laboratory appeared in the United States, in which they began to do primary typing of bone marrow donors: they took blood, examined genes that are responsible for tissue compatibility. Two years later, that is, 40 years ago, a similar laboratory appeared in the Soviet Union. Now there are 9 million donors in the United States, and we have 120,000,”he said.

At the same time, he added that bone marrow donation in Russia, though not so fast, is developing, and noted that in order to improve the situation, becoming a donor "should become fashionable."