With the aim to advance the country’s health care system in keeping with modern medicine, the Human Organ Transplant Bill is expected to be presented in Parliament on or before May 2021.
The Guyana Medical Council along with the Head of Department for Multi-Organ Transplant and Vascular Access Surgery, Dr Kishore Persaud, and his team from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on Wednesday met with the Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney-General, Anil Nandlall.
The meeting dealt with enacting legislation to govern human tissue transplant to the body of another living person and ethical issues relating to this operation. A statement from the Attorney-General’s Chambers noted that there is no legislation governing, authorising and regulating the donation of tissue and organs to persons who meet the criteria of either being a donor or recipient of such donation.
As such, in order to protect citizens from being victims of trafficking in human organs and tissue, proposals will be made for the legislation to prohibit this; the legislation will also create offences and penalties to monitor such grim incidents.
The statement noted that a consultative approach has been agreed upon, which will include consultative engagements involving all stakeholders and associations and their collective input will be channelled into the legislation and ensuing regulations.
The Georgetown Hospital has been lobbying for years for such legislation which will also save lives. The public hospital has the capability and equipment for such operations but there is no legislation to govern it.
