Vol , Issue
Date of Publication: September 04, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2018.070
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“Brain death” and “circulatory death”: Need for a uniform definition of death in India
Sunil Shroff
Sumana Navin
Abstract:
In India, the definition of brain death is contained only in the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) of 1994. Doctors of ICU patients who are brain dead are unsure of what to do when the relatives refuse organ donation. However, ventilating a dead patient goes against correct medical practice and also blocks a valuable ICU bed. Delinking brain death from organ donation is essential, and this requires inclusion of "brain death" in the definition of death in The Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, so that a uniform policy can be framed in the country.
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©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2018: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.