Lagos State House of Assembly on Wednesday held a public hearing on ‘A Bill for a Law to Regulate Organ Harvest and Transplantation’. The proposed bill captures the legal framework for the regulation of organ transplantation from donors, either living or dead to patients in need in the State. Welcoming stakeholders to the hearing on the bill, Chairman of the Committee on Health Services, Hon. Hakeem Sokunle, said that the proposed law is long overdue considering the trend of illegal trafficking of human organs by unscrupulous elements in our society. Sokunle highlighted the objectives of the bill to include regulation of harvest and transplant of human organs in order to curb illegal trading; ensuring that persons suffering from organ failure have access to available organs; and ensuring that the standard medical procedure for human organ harvest and transplant is duly followed in the State. In a keynote address, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. (Dr.) Mudashiru Obasa, who was represented by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Eshinlokun Sanni, noted that the bill under consideration dealt on a topic of clinical importance. “Organic harvesting is a very important aspect of medical practice in our common bid for healthy existence. Harvested organs are what experts transplant in the treatment of those that are in medical need of those organs due to failure of their own organs. “Admirably, this bill seeks to create a system that will annihilate the bad ethics and illegalities being perpetrated by some nefarious elements, which calls for concerted effort like we are seeking to make today. “Thus, this bill seeks to introduce a system that will eradicate the dangerous practices and introduce structural sanctity in that aspect of medical profession,” he maintained. The Leader of the House, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade, who gave an overview of the bill, said that it would address some supposed challenges in the medical system if passed into law. According to him, the bill is expertly sectioned into seven parts with 37 sub-sections to prevent illegal trade in human parts, organ trafficking and transplanting. Parts one to seven majorly creates the structure which includes the interpretation of medical terms; objectives of the law; creation of organ harvest and transplantation department; registration of transplant bio banks; the procedure to donate and receive an organ, decisions of the authorisation committee and restriction on removal of organs. Expounding on parts three to four that substantially addresses the procedures to donate and receive organs; Hon. Agunbiade highlighted the conditions for approving an application ‘live and opt-in donor’ which comprises the approval of the authorisation committee as well as conditions that the recipient and the donor are medically and mentally eligible to engage in the process. Taking into account, part seven which is designed to stimulate practical discipline and sanctity from the stakeholders involved, Hon. Agunbiade explained that an authorised medical practitioner shall take necessary steps stipulated in the bill for the preservation of the organ removed from the body of any person. According to the bill, there shall be limitations of suit against the authorisation committee except in the case of medical negligence; a donor may also choose to revoke consent to donate an organ at any time before the organ is removed and there shall be no civil or criminal liabilities for such revocation.
Penalties in the bill indicate that any person who removes the organ of another person for a reason other than therapeutic purposes commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years without an option of fine, amongst other strict penalties. Stakeholders at the hearing made contributions and submitted memoranda which the Deputy Speaker assured would be adopted to improve the quality of the eventual law as the Lagos State House of Assembly values public contributions in the formulation of policies. Mr. Sanni Ekowusi, a legal practitioner and member of the editorial board of ThisDay Newspaper, said that major problem of any law remains its enforcement urging that this should be looked into just as he suggested that other organs should be mentioned in the definition of organs as there are other forms of organs which include eggs, sperms, and embryo. He also suggested that the members of the organ harvest and transplantation department should include the office of the clergy as man is made up of body and soul. Dr. Ajibola Keshinro, a psychiatrist at Apapa General Hospital recommended that the topic of the bill should be amended to incorporate the human cell as it is the functional unit of the human organ. He also suggested that a relevant medical specialist for each type of organ transplantation and harvest should be accommodated into the authorisation committee as well as a need to include a psychiatrist as the decision to donate is liable and a donor could therefore be pressurised from physical and emotional factors. Prof. Jacob Awobusuyi, a nephrologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, suggested that a nephrologist or urologist or any other specialist be considered in the committee. “It is also necessary to review the details of patients and donors as this will minimise the usage of paid donors in living donor transplantation programmes and is an absolute necessity in cadaveric transplantation programme’s because of the complexities,” He said.
