IS ORGAN DONATION NECESSARY OR NOT?
‘Live long after you are gone’ is the propulsion behind organ donation. It is the most sacred and the most valuable service rendered by a person to mankind. Organ donation is the act of donating an organ by a person so that it can be transplanted by surgical pro-cedure in the body of the recipient. Organ donation can benefit the recipient largely by improving health, quality and span of his life and even save him from death or other conditions like paralysis.
Organ donatio has got new wings in the present society as are hearing more and more donations recently. This donation may be signed earlier by the agree to donate when his /her brain declared dead by the doctor. The most surprising fact about organ donation is that some organs can be donated even when a person is alive. By getting registered as a donor with some trust, one gets a donor card which makes him/her eligible for the donation soon after his/her death. A single donor ‘s body saves up to 50 lives. In India, most of the people believe that performing the last rites with some organs missing is never taking their souls to heaven. In these con- ditions of hard belief one can’t make the concept understood by the uneducated people so it is better to make the beneficiary to explain use of organ donation. The one who took the pain explains better than anyone.
Organ donation confined to the highly educated or rich persons. Central and state govern- ments should telecast adds about organ donation in movie theatres, shopping malls, bus stops and rail- way stations. MLAs and MPs should spread the word of organ donation. Lecturers and teachers should explain the importance to students. Government should introduce a chapter about organ donation in educational institutions. Sometimes, the donor’s family should be helped financially.
Most of the NGO’s are offering online registrations for organ donations and they are providing con- versations with the needy. NOTTO (National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation) works under Ministry of Health Family and Welfare function as apex centre for all India activities coordination and networking for procurement and distribution of organs and tissues and registry of organs and tis-sues donation and transplantation in the country, National Biomaterial Centre (National Tissue Bank) was established under Organs Amendment Act 2011 includes the compo- nent of tissue donation and registration of Tissue Banks. It became imperative under the changed cir- cumstances to establish a national level Tissue Bank to meet the demands of tissue transplantation. Some research is still to be concluded on transplantation of face, brain and limbs. À recent Hrudaya incident happened in Hyderabad where heart of the brain dead person from Chennai was transplanted to a lady present in Hyderabad, the traffic police provided green corridor in transporting the heart by the am- bulance. We can use the social networking sites to promote the concept and we can save many lines. Most of the persons come forward to donate but lack of awareness regarding where and how to donate make them remained stagnant and sometimes they may be misled by the illegal organ traders.
India runs short of organ donors for over two lakh pa- tients waiting for organ transplants every year. India currently has a deceased donation rate of 0.05 to 0.08 per million people. India lags far behind the US, where the cadaver donation rate has reached 25 per million people in 2010, according to statistics from the Council of Europe. The major problem is lack of awareness. Cadaver donation is not a familiar con-cept among the Indian public. Myths and misconcep-tions exist at large. Cadaver donations take place only after patients are declared brain dead. Under such circumstances, the organs are able to remain in good quality if well maintained.
In urban areas, the people know about organ do-nation as they see some advertisement on road or watch in TV regarding some Bollywood actors and many other have announced to donate eyes after death which help to enlighten the life of the blind. In India, we have the habit to follow celebrity. So, with this, most people are aware of it but the government is lacking in this field. However, in rural areas, a few people have knowledge of it.
In India, mostly in rural areas, the family don’t prefer for dissection of the cadaver; there are a lot of reason as they fear of ren cence if they harm its body; any-way they don’t know its importance that they had lost a mem with their help they can embellish a member any other poor family.
There is a new concept as Brain Dead. There are some unconscious person whose brain don’t work by some misfortune may happen with them but still such per- sons are alive.So with the permission of their family, they can help to other family by donating Kidney, liver, eyes, etc.
The government and the civil society should spread the message in favour of organ donation in the nook and corner of the country. The rural India should be made aware of the fact that organ donation and transplantation is permissible and beneficial as far as their religious and financial limits concerned. One of the important steps the government should do re-garding education as in each and every class from primary to secondary school, at least one chapter should be added regarding health care in daily life as we have for environment.
The human conscience can never be opposed to organ donation. The fact that it needs to be com- municated to one and all remains to be carried out. Whether we consider doing charity and noble deeds in lifetime or not, but death is definitely an opportu-nity when you can contribute to humanity by the act of organ donation.
