A committee of the Maharashtra government has refused a 16-year-old girl’s plea to donate a part of her liver to her ailing father, saying it was unsure if the teenager consented to the medical procedure out of “free will”, news agency PTI reported on Wednesday.
The girl, through her mother, had moved the Bombay High Court seeking a direction of the state government to process her application for permission to donate a part of her liver speedily.
The state authorisation committee led by the director of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said, “The committee cannot rule out the existence of emotional pressure and cannot confirm that the consent given by the minor daughter is out of a free will.”
The teenager’s father suffers from ‘liver cirrhosis decompensated’, according to her petition to the high court.
According to the girl’s plea, her father was advised to undergo a liver transplant in March. Barring the girl, no other close relative was found medically suitable as a donor, it mentioned.
However, considering she is a minor, the girl cannot donate a part of her liver to her father unless the authorisation committee established under the Organ Transplantation Act gives a nod, the petition said.
This development comes following the court’s direction to the Maharashtra government last week to take a call on the 16-year-old’s application and inform it accordingly, the PTI report added.
On Wednesday, the girl’s lawyer Tapan Thatte presented before a vacation bench of Justices AK Menon and NR Borkar the authorisation panel’s report dismissing her application. It said the recipient of the organ donation – the girl’s father – was a chronic alcoholic, which was the possible reason behind hepatic failure, and there was no evidence of his rehabilitation documented.
“The fact that the patient has hepatic failure due to alcohol has not been brought forward. The donor and her mother seem unaware of the risks and complications of the surgery to the donor and recipient,” PTI reported quoting the authorisation panel’s report.
The committee further pointed out that the girl is the sole offspring of her parents.
The high court permitted the girl to amend her plea to challenge the authorisation committee’s report, and adjourned the matter for further hearing to May 13.