News Excerpt: 

Poor identification and certification of brain stem death or brain death cases is keeping the rate of organ donations at low levels in India, despite the availability of many potential cases.

More about the news: 

• The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has asked health authorities to identify each potential brain death case admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and inquire whether the potential donor had pledged for organ donation.
• If the potential donor had not pledged for organ donation, hospital authorities should make family members aware of the opportunity to donate organs before the heart stops.
• Issuing a Standard Operating Procedure under the provisions of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994
• The doctor on duty, with the help of the transplant coordinator, should make necessary inquiries after the brain death cases are certified by the competent authority.
• Requesting every hospital to facilitate and monitor the certification of brain death cases to ensure compliance with the THOTA Act and Rules (Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994).
• Hospitals are required to install 'Required Request Display Boards' at strategic locations, conveying the message that in the event of brain death or cardiac arrest, organ and tissue donation like kidney, liver, heart, pancreas, eyes, skin, and bones can save lives.
• The DGHS also issued a proforma for collecting relevant information from hospitals so that the data could be analyzed and corrective action taken to maximize organ donation from all potential donors. 
• Organ transplant authorities in every State/Union Territory were told to furnish data related to the number of patients who expired in the ICU with cause of death.
• As part of the initiatives to augment the organ donation rate and achieve self-sufficiency in the field of deceased organ donation:
• The authorities were told to update the National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation, on a monthly basis.
• The number of brain death cases identified and certified.
• The number of cases where the family gave consent to donate organs and the number of organs donated and utilized among other details.