West Bengal to Set Up Organ Retrieval Centres at 24 Govt Medical College Hospitals
Kolkata: To address the acute shortage of organs available for transplant, the West Bengal government has announced plans to establish Non-Transplant Organ Retrieval Centres (NTORCs) at all 24 state-run medical colleges. These centres will be equipped to retrieve organs from brain-dead patients but will not perform transplant surgeries.
Currently, only three state-run hospitals—SSKM Hospital, Medical College Kolkata, and NRS Medical College and Hospital—are authorized to conduct organ transplants. The remaining 21 teaching hospitals lack the infrastructure to even retrieve organs from deceased donors, a gap that officials now aim to close.
Doctors have long highlighted the dire need to boost organ donation in Bengal, where the demand for organs far exceeds the supply. Patients with end-stage organ failure often die waiting for a transplant.
Establishing organ retrieval infrastructure in all medical colleges would significantly enhance the frequency of cadaveric organ donations, thereby increasing the availability of organs for transplant and offering renewed hope to patients on waiting lists.
Despite a hopeful surge in cadaveric donations in 2018, growth has since stalled. According to Manimoy Bandyopadhyay, director of the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), only 13 donors were recorded in 2018, compared to 14 in 2024—a marginal increase over six years.
Speaking to Telegraph India, the official of the state health department said, “We will set up non-transplant organ retrieval centres (NTORC) in all 24 state-run medical colleges in Bengal.”
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The expansion is part of a boarded initiative aimed at increasing the cadaveric organ donations across the state. According to Telegraph India, another official said that if organ harvesting facilities were not set up in more hospitals, the medical fraternity would lose out on many families who might agree to donate the organs of someone who was declared brain dead at the hospital. But the same hospitals may not have qualified surgeons or the necessary infrastructure to conduct the transplant surgery and to provide post-transplant care.
Officials also point to the importance of counselling families of accident victims and trauma patients, who are often declared brain dead, to consider organ donation.
“A well-equipped intensive care unit (ICU) and ventilators will be required to harvest the organs from the brain-dead person,” said a doctor who worked in Bengal’s public healthcare sector for several decades, Telegraph India reports.
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In a recent conference on organ donation and transplant held in the city, senior doctors and health department officials raised concerns over the stagnation of organ donation rates in West Bengal.
A senior official from a state-run medical college hospital noted that Bengal lags significantly behind southern and some western Indian states in terms of organ donation rates. Doctors at the conference emphasized that increasing the number of deceased organ donations could play a crucial role in curbing organ trafficking by reducing the dependency on live donors. This shift would not only address ethical concerns but also safeguard the health of potential live donors.
Former ROTTO-East joint director Dr. Arpita Ray Chaudhury emphasized the necessity of not just harvesting organs, but also managing long-term care for recipients.
According to the news reports, Ray Chaudhury, a nephrology and transplant consultant at Manipal Hospitals, emphasized that the government should also operate regular and well-managed post-transplant clinics.