The status of organ donation in India especially in Odisha is very bad,” said All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar Director Dr Ashok Kumar Mahapatra on the occasion of the World Organ Donation Day celebrated at the AIIMS campus here on Tuesday.
Mahapatra said awareness, education and motivation are needed to sensitise people about organ transplantation and body donation for a greater cause that saves lives of many people. He informed that kidney transplantation, which was started from 1971 at the AIIMS, costs Rs 2.5 lakh while it costs around Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5-10 lakh for heart and bone marrow transplantation, respectively, in the Government hospitals.
“Organ transplantation has now become easy and accessible. A person can save nearly eight persons’ lives through organ donation,” said Dr Mohapatra, adding, “Organs can be collected from the persons who suffer brain death.”
He said that a dying patient can help the persons who need heart, lungs and eyes. Even skin, bone and a few other body parts can be transplanted easily. “Due to blind belief and superstitions, organ donation has virtually become a nonstarter in Odisha,” he rued.
Dr Mahapatra felicitated all the seven persons who have pledged to save others’ lives by donating their valuable organs. He also said hundreds of people in need of organ transplants cannot be saved every year because of lack of donors.
Notably, the Central Government has amended the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 (42 of 1994) to include certain changes called the Transplantation of Human Organs Rules, 1995 to streamline organ donation and transplantation activities which accepted brain death as a form of death and made sale of organs a punishable offence.