Implicit consent to donate organs after death introduced by the amended Organ, Tissue and Cell Transplantation Act

A government bill on amendments to the Organ, Tissue and Cell Transplantation Act introduces the principle of implicit consent to donate organs after death. The bill was discussed by Parliament at first reading Friday.

The other bill on amendments to the same act, tabled by MPs Borislav Kitov and Luchezar Ivanov and discussed at first reading, also provides for implicit agreement for donation of organs, tissues and cells after death.

The two MPs have motivated their bill with the arguments that they take into account the exceedingly cumbersome administrative procedure on expression of consent and that they are guided by the fact that over the past two years since the enforcement of the Act there are only 21 real donors with brain death (considerably less than the real potential and absolutely insufficient as compared to the enormous list of patients waiting for organs). In turn, the Transplantations Executive Agency reports that a mere 1,500 of the eight million Bulgarian citizens have expressed their will.

The model, which is offered operates in most of the European countries and is recorded in the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, on Transplantation of Organs and Tissues of Human Origin.

The present Act requires registration both of informed consent and informed refusal to donate organs after death. As at the beginning of May only 2,013 persons had expressed their will regarding donorship of organs after death, 1,548 registering informed consent and only 465 informed refusal.

Amendments are also being introduced in the duties of the Transplantations Executive Agency. Every three years the Executive Agency will report to the European Commission the steps taken in Bulgaria to popularise and encourage voluntary donation of tissue and cells and to ensure the quality and safety of expert opinions, and in the processing, storage and transplantation, as well as the control and the inspections carried out.

BTA