While the number of persons dying from road accidents is at a high in India, doctors are concerned about why India still lags behind in the “cadaver donations” with just 0.16 organ and tissue donations persons per million (ppm). Globally, the cadaver donations are as high as 34 ppm in Spain followed by France. In India, the pathway to such donations has been found but there are many hurdles that need to be overcome.
Discussing the way forward at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Dr Vimal Bhandari, the Director of National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), said “No organ should go wasted in India”. While the awareness about donating organs has started in India, the problem is how to convert the mindsets, he added.
“There is a gap between donor and recipient of organ…whether in families or strangers this gap needs to be bridged. I have spoken to several religious groups and no religion is against organ donation. let the souls be taken after death but the organs remain to support life on earth,” said Bhandari, who has carried numerous transplants at Safderjung Hospital.
“We need organ retrieving centres in every district and region to take this forward successfully.”
The lecture was organised by the National Service Scheme of JNU at the School of language, literature and Cultural Studies on Sunday.
Speaking about the scope of organ donations, barriers and changing scenario, Senior Surgeon at Sri Ganga Ram Hospital Dr Ashwini Gupta explained the value of the “brain-dead” person’s organs and what it means to be “brain-dead”.
He said usually when a person has a fatal road accident, he is declared brain dead which means his brain stops functioning to support his life while all other organs are working with the help of machines and “this is the crucial time when his healthy organs could be used to save lives of people who are in need of such healthy organs.” Organs of people who die due to heart-attacks and brain hemorrhages can also be used in saving lives of the recipients.
“One brain-dead person can donate 31 different organs and one such person can save many lives but we are lagging behind in many ways. There is lack of awareness about the whole concept of brain dead and the usage of cadaver organs,” he said and gave examples of how a dead person’s chances of saving a life are often dropped by religious beliefs.
He said, “These myths and beliefs have to be dealt with through awareness drive about the issue.”
Organ donations include eye donations, kidney transplants, liver, skin and transplants of many other parts.
According to 2014 report, Sri Ganga Ram Hospital carried only 14 organ transplants, Apollo Hospital carried 11, Medanta Medcity Hospital and BlK Hospital and Fortis Heart Institute only three.
Gupta said that simplification of the process by proper infrastructure, more transplant centres and trained manpower for transplants would help in improving the scenario of organ donations in the country further.
He, however, hailed the Delhi Police for providing green corridor for a kidney transplants twice for the hospital, recently, which he said indicated the changing scenario.