Rahael: Tissue Act fully operational by August

PARLIAMENTARY approval will not be necessary for the Human Tissue Transplant Act 2000’s regulations, and the Act’s provisions will take immediate effect once they meet their July 31 deadline for completion. The Act legalises the harvesting, storage and transplanting of cadavers and live donors, but it needs the regulations to take effect. According to Health Minister John Rahael, all that needs to be done is to publish the regulations and the Act’s provisions will become operational. He said even if the regulations have to go to Parliament, it would be a mere formality to get them approved. He added that one of the things the regulations will allow is for persons who are non-family members to donate organs to persons in need, once all the medical requirements are met. This is not currently allowed by law.

The Minister reiterated his concerns about persons in need of organ transplants undergoing these procedures, and reports about local agents soliciting such persons to undertake procedures. He said this was something that the Ministry does not recommend, and this was why it was important to get the regulations in place. Rahael said former Health Minister Dr Hamza Rafeeq could not blame the Ministry for “dragging its feet” in publishing the regulations when the fault fell squarely in the lap of the former UNC regime. Checks with parliamentary records show that the legislation was first introduced in the Senate on January 29, 1999 as the Human Tissue Transplant Bill 1999, but was not passed in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. The Bill was sent along with the Human Reproductive and Genetic Technologies Bill (which has not been passed to date) to a joint select committee for further consideration on March 16, 1999 in the Senate, and on March 19, 1999 in the Lower House.

Reports on the Bill were submitted to the Senate and the Lower House on September 4 and September 6, 1999 respectively. The Bill subsequently lapsed on prorogation of the fourth session of the fifth Parliament on October 4, 1999. In an August 24, 2003 Newsday interview, former Junior Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan said the UNC passed the legislation in 2001, but the attached regulations were never approved because of that year’s political events which caused the UNC to lose office. In a subsequent interview, then Health Minister Colm Imbert said the UNC “had one year to bring that legislation to Parliament and five years before that to draft it.” Imbert was optimistic that regulations would be effected by the end of September or October 2003. Rahael replaced Imbert as Health Minister in a November 7, 2003 Cabinet reshuffle.