Manner of establishing National or Regional or State Human Organs and Tissues Removal and Storage Networks and their functions.

(1) There shall be an apex national networking organisation at the centre, as the Central Government may by notification specify. (2) There shall also be regional and State level networking organisations where large number of transplantation of organ(s) or tissue (s) are performed as the Central Government may by notification specify. (3) The State units would be linked to hospitals, organ or tissue matching laboratories and tissue banks within their area and also to regional and national networking organisations. (4) The broad principles of organ allocation and sharing shall be as under,— (a) The website of the transplantation center shall be linked to State or Regional cum State or National networks through an online system for organ procurement, sharing and transplantation. (b) patient or recipient may get registered through any transplant centre, but only one centre of a State or region (if there is no centre in the State) and his or her details shall be made available online to the networking organisations, who shall allocate the registration number, which shall remain same even if patient changes hospital; (c) the allocation of the organ to be shared, is to be decided by the State networking organization and by the National networking organization in case of Delhi; (d) all recipients are to be listed for requests of organs from deceased donors, however priority is to be given in following order, namely:- (i) those who do not have any suitable living donor among near relatives; (ii) those who have a suitable living donor available among near relatives but the donor has refused in writing to donate; and (iii) those who have a suitable living donor available and who has also not refused to donate in writing; (e) sequence of allocation of organs shall be in following order: State list----Regional List-----National List—Person of Indian Origin ----Foreigner; (f) the online system of networking and framework and formats of national registry as mentioned under rule 32 shall be developed by the apex networking organisation which shall be followed by the States Governments or Union territory Administrations and the allocation criteria may be State specific which shall be finalised and determined by the State Government, in consultation with the State level networking organisation, wherever such organisation exists: Provided that the organ sharing and networking policy of States or locations of hospitals shall not be binding on the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) and the armed forces shall be free to have their own policy of organ or tissue allocation and sharing, and the Director General Armed Forces Medical Services shall have its own networking between the Armed Forces Medical Services hospitals, who shall be permitted to accept organs when available from hospitals with in their State jurisdiction. (5) The networking organisations shall coordinate retrieval, storage, transportation, matching, allocation and transplantation of organs and tissues and shall develop norms and standard operating procedures for such activities and for tissues to the extent possible. (6) The networking organisations shall coordinate with respective State Government for establishing new transplant and retrieval centres and tissue banks and strengthening of existing ones. (7) There shall be designated organ and tissue retrieval teams in State or District or institution as per requirement, to be constituted by the State or Regional networking organisation. (8) For tissue retrieval, the retrieval teams shall be formed by the State Government or Union territory Administration where ever required. (9) Networking shall be e-enabled and accessible through dedicated website. (10) Reference or allocation criteria would be developed and updated regularly by networking organisations in consultation with the Central or State Government, as the case may be. (11) The networking organisation(s) shall undertake Information Education and Communication (IEC) Activities for promotion of deceased organ and tissue donation. (12) The networking organisation(s) shall maintain and update organ or tissue Donation and Transplant Registry at respective level.