The Department of Transportation and Public Works shall develop and implement, with the collaboration and advice of the Human Bodies, Organs and Tissues Disposal Board, an education program for the applicants of new licenses and renewal of motor vehicles driving licenses in Puerto Rico. Said program shall be established as a brief orientation for all persons over eighteen (18) years of age that request said services at the Department of Transportation and Public Works Traffic Division. When applying for a new license or the renewal thereof, a separate application shall be enclosed so that in the case that the person voluntarily accepts the anatomic donations program, it may be duly completed and remitted to the Human Bodies, Organs and Tissues Disposal Board. In the case of death, the administrator of each hospital, upon compliance with the provisions of §§ 3620—3620y of this title, shall be responsible for remitting a copy of the driver’s license of the deceased or the hospital protocol of the donor to the Human Bodies, Organs and Tissues Disposal Board so that the latter may take action in accordance with the prerogatives set forth in §§ 3620—3620y of this title. The citizens previously registered in an anatomic donations program shall be exempted from said requirement by presenting their voluntary donor’s card registered in a program. The information on the disposition for donation of the body, organs or tissues or the applicant shall not be part of the personal file of the applicant at the Department of Transportation and Public Works, being the same in the custody of the Human Bodies, Organs and Tissues Disposal Board, which shall be in charge of developing and implementing the mechanisms needed to satisfy such request. The disposition to donate the body, any of its organs or tissues is a voluntary statement of the citizen which may be withdrawn by the citizen when he wishes to do so. The Human Bodies, Organs and Tissues Disposal Board shall implement the regulations to such effects.
The Board shall develop, with the advice and consent of the Department of Transportation and Public Works, a continuous program to educate and inform the health professionals, agencies, being it understood to be all departments, offices, commissions, boards and instrumentalities of the Executive, Legislative or Judicial Branches of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and shall include the public corporations and the municipalities, its officers, employees and public in general of the meaning and scope of §§ 3620—3620y of this title and the existing need in Puerto Rico for a greater number of anatomical donors, with the purpose that they may orient the other employees of the agencies with respect to the benefits, rights, and procedures for the donation of organs and tissues. Likewise, the Department of Education shall collaborate with the Human Body, Organ and Tissue Disposal Board in the coordination and implementation of the educational programs developed by the Board regarding organ donation and include such programs as part of the curriculum of the public schools of Puerto Rico.
The Board shall submit an annual report to the Governor and the Legislature no later than January 31, which shall contain information on the effectiveness of the program in achieving an increase in the donation of bodies, organs and tissues useful for medical-surgical treatment of patients in Puerto Rico.
History —Dec. 25, 2002, No. 296, § 26; Apr. 8, 2011, No. 56, § 1.