Green Corridor for Organ Donation and Transplantation- UPSC Notes! (2024)

Green Corridor is a demarcated, cleared-out special road route created for an ambulance that enables harvested organs meant for transplant to reach the destined hospital. It is a special corridor created without any stoppages which ensure that, during transit, organs arrive at their specified destination within the shortest possible time.

This is an important innovative step taken by the government to save human lives and encourage organ donation. It is also important from the UPSC Exam perspective and comes under the Social Justice section in the GS-II paper.

In this article, we will cover the origin of this Green Corridor initiative, its need, procedure, impact, challenges, and green corridor projects in India with a way forward. Aspirants can take the help of Testbook comprehensive UPSC online course to cover the UPSC syllabus.

About Green Corridor Project

• The green corridor project is a way to accelerate organ transplants to save lives.
• In the green corridor project, the hospitals and traffic department collaborate to transport vital organs between hospitals in the shortest time possible to go from place A to place B.
• They are demarcated, cleared out special road routes that are created for the ambulance to enable harvested organs to reach the destined hospital.
• The green corridor in India is a special path that is created without any stoppages for ambulances. It ensures that, during transit, organs arrive at their specified destination within the shortest possible time.
• Although the green corridor system was initially devised to handle medical emergencies. Nowadays, it is frequently used for the purpose of transfer of donated organs.
• It is managed in a way that all the traffic signals that lie on the route are green and controlled manually.
• On the green corridor all the red signals on the route are skipped. It will reduce travel time by several precious minutes. The earlier an organ is transplanted the better chances of success.
• Green corridors ensure that no organ is wasted. The whole operation requires good coordination among the traffic officials.

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Process for Organ Transfer Via Green Corridor

• The Government of India (GOI) in 1994 passed Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) where the brain death concept was legalized and organ procurement from heart beating and brain-dead donors were facilitated.
• The entire process takes place in three steps. The first step is harvesting the organ from the donor, the second step is interinstitutional transportation, and the final step is transplantation surgery. All the steps must be completed in the shortest possible time.
• When the donor family's consent is confirmed and the organs are matched to a recipient, the hospital's staff gets in touch with the police commissioner. This is usually done 2 to 4 hours before the organ is harvested.
• The traffic police chart the fastest and the most navigable route between the two points.
• Personnel are placed on different points along the route to blockade the roads, manage traffic and make sure that the ambulance does not run into any red lights.
• A motorcade of around 4 to 5 vehicles set off to the destination. This includes police gypsies as well as an additional ambulance as a precaution for breakdowns.
• The combined work of Ambulance Staff and the police authorities have made organ transport a lot more efficient, however, there is debate about the road route, and developments are underway for air routes so as to inconvenience fewer people.

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Need for Encouraging Organ Donation and Transplant

• The annual organs requirement in India is mentioned in the table below,

Source- National Organ Transplant Program.

• India with a population of over a billion is far behind in organ donation campaigns. The national deceased donation rate of less than 1 pmp.

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Importance of Green Corridor

• Lesser wastage of organs
• Environment of voluntary organ donation among masses
• Reduce demand and supply gap
• Saving the life in danger
• Encourage medical tourism in India
• Improve coordination among various stakeholders.
• Capacity building in hospitals.
• Attract young talent in the medical profession.

Effect of Green Corridor on Organ Donation in India

• With the onset of the 21st century, organ donation has taken a big stride, still waiting for organ transplants is higher than its availability.
• The Green Corridors have instilled confidence among organ donors. The number is increasing in recent years.
• More and more cities are adopting the green corridor concept.

Case Study

• The present study was conducted at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh. It is one of the premier tertiary care multi-specialty hospitals of North India providing services to the states of Punjab, Haryana, HP, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and to the city itself.
• With the help of the green corridor, the 45-minute (approximately) distance is reduced to a minimum of 12–14 minutes in the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.

Green Corridor Projects

• The concept of Green Corridor in India has been in use since 2014.
• Chennai became the first city in India to consolidate this concept and create a green corridor.
• Surat has become the first city in India to consolidate the green corridor system with black-and-white notifications. It ensures that no one is wasting time building a green corridor.
• This system has also been adopted in multiple cities to save lives such as Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Indore.

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Challenges

The Green Corridor project for organ donation and transplantation is a tedious process and poses the following challenges,

• Involvement of multi-stakeholders in the process, and requires the highest degree of coordination.
• Short viable time for organs in which it has to be transplanted.
• High-speed driving involves the risk of accidents and puts the life of drivers and passengers in danger.
• Confusion and inconvenience to local travelers.
• Delay in getting the consent of the deceased person’s family.
• Poor road infrastructure

Organ Donation Initiatives in India

The Government of India undertook multiple initiatives for promotion and transparency in organ donation and transplantation, such as

• Passing of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 1994.
• Establishing the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization to regulate organ donation and transplantation.
• mandatory declaration of brain deaths before harvesting organ from the donor
• Adopting the standard procedure for cadaver transplant,
• Establishing criteria to retrieve organs in the non-transplant centers,
• postmortem procedures, and a counseling department for all registered hospitals.
• Awareness campaign to encourage organ donation.

National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTA)

• National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) is a National organization. It was set up under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• The headquarters of NOTTO is located in New Delhi.
• NOTTO has created various state centers called State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (SOTTO).
• NOTTO works to coordinate and establish a network for the procurement and distribution of organs and tissues.
• NOTTO functions according to the Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act 2011.
• NOTTO in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is developing a national registry of organ and tissue donors.
• This initiative will help in maintaining data and surveillance of all transplants across the country and also plans to map the post-transplant survival rate of patients.

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Conclusion

Green corridor projects for organ donation and transplantation provide excellent opportunities to save lives and promote organ donation. Although it is not sufficient to meet the requirement of the country. Green corridors must be complemented with increased organ donation campaigns like education, awareness, and legislation.

The strong political commitments along with the participation of nongovernment organizations required put an impetus on organ donation promotion.

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