Body donation helps in teaching, research and Hand’s on training to doctors making them more compatible for performing live surgeries, said Dr Daisy Sahni of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research. It helps one live, a life beyond death, and render service for the betterment of the society.
However, for the past few years the demand for bodies have been rising exponentially but number of people pledging there body has gone down. Experts at the premier institute have failed to understand the cause behind this sudden decline. There was an increase from 15 to 20 bodies during the current year and 1860 people have pledged their bodies after death since 2007, but there has been a decline in body donation, 2011 onwards according to the official data at PGI.
Dr Sahni says many factors such as age, religion, culture, personality characteristics, views on death and mortality, and humanitarian concerns influence people’s opinion towards body donation. Meanwhile, she adds that all major religions approve of body and organ donation as a charitable act of giving for medical and dental teaching, research, and transplants. Most express that it is an individual decision. Major religions support donation as an act of human kindness in keeping with religious teaching.
“Body donation provides medical students, researchers and senior residents with unparalleled opportunities to study the human body. Books and computer programs can not replicate the hands-on method of teaching human anatomy. There is no substitute for the human body in the teaching of human anatomy. When someone donates their body after death, they help train the next generation of doctors,” said Dr SN Mathuria, Head of Department Neurosurgery at PGIMER.