By: Laura Fuentes
In El Salvador, despite the previous efforts made in transplant and donations legislation, there is still a solid regulatory framework needed, and have not been taken the right steps to make the population culturally recognize the donating their organs upon death importance, therefore, the new law has been created to enable and guarantee the right to receive an organ transplant, Therefore, it has been created a new law to make possible and guarantee the right to receive a transplant of human cells, tissues, and organs, not only with living donors, but also when the donor is deceased, and to guarantee the adequate treatment for the organs conservation and function, as well as the drugs for the patients who have been benefited.
The purpose of the Organ Special Law, Tissue, Cell Donation and Transplantation is to regulate the activities related to the promotion, donation, extraction, preparation, disposition, distribution, and transplantation of hematopoietic and stem cells obtained from bone marrow, tissues, and organs from living or deceased brain-dead donors, for therapeutic research or teaching purposes.
It is important to mention that the Law provisions derivates purposes are not applicable to human blood, its derivatives for transfusion purposes, nor to sperm and ovum, and the use of organs, tissues, and cells from human embryos or fetuses are prohibited.
The governing entity is the Health Ministry which will be responsible for elaborating, monitoring, and updating the National Policy donation and transplantation of organs, tissues, and cells for therapeutic purposes and scientific research, as a National Health Policy and Plan, and for guaranteeing the necessary resources, as well as updating the regulations, technical norms and protocols.
From this Law, the National Transplant Center “CENTRA” is created as an autonomous entity in technical and administrative matters, The National Integrated Health System and the private sector that provide health services will be in national transplants and donation coordination charge, is engaged in activities related to transplants or donation; It will also coordinate the distribution and organs allocation, tissues and cells, and will promote the quality, safety, and traceability of all the processes, and with the importance it deserves, the rights of donors and recipients, and the requirements to be fulfilled by living or deceased donors due to encephalic death.
There will also be a donors and recipient’s national registry where data will be systematically collected, whose information will be reserved, confidential, and in compliance with the provisions of the Law of Access to Public Information and the Law of Governmental Ethics, and all health establishments authorized for donation or transplantation are obliged to provide the corresponding information to feed the database of the national registry of transplants.
In addition, there will be a single waiting list in the country that includes the data registry of patients who are apt, prepared, and ready to receive an organ, tissue, and cell transplant and who have an active status, registered by the authorized health establishments. Said list must be prepared and managed in accordance with the principles of bioethics, transparency, justice, equity, and equality in compliance with the medical criteria established in the respective protocols, and the list will be unique for each organ, tissue, and cell.
The creation and implementation of all the above mentioned comes to strengthen the regulatory framework of the country in health matters, will allow the population to prolong life or improve the people quality who need them, and can only be carried by those who are donors in an altruistic and disinterested way.