Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-01-17

Seeking the consent of drivers to donate organs and tissues for transplantation

- With the advancement of medical science, it is becoming prevalent to successfully transplant an organ of a healthy person who voluntarily donates such organ to be transplanted in place of the damaged organ of another person. Organs can be donated by persons who are living, by those who have had a brain death or circulatory death, in case the person has given his/her consent prior to death. As such, the proposal made by Hon. (Dr.) Rajitha Senarathe, the Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, to amend the application form when applying for a driving license and renewing it with the inclusion of a statement indicating the consent of the bearer who suffers a brain death or a circulatory death as a result of a road traffic accident, enabling the drivers to donate their organs and tissues, to be transplanted for the benefit of the needy patients and to amend the present driving license so as to display such consent given, was approved by the Cabinet.