Organ Donation Benefits

People worldwide are becoming increasingly prone towards various diseases with a mounting percentage of people with organ failures. Many are waiting to see if an organ becomes available and for a second chance at life. Such waiting causes suffering and deaths that could be preventable – if someone turns up to pledge their organs - and also add to a huge amount of money to health care costs. Recently, a family volunteered to donate their brain-dead son’s organs in Delhi. The doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) worked for 10 hours conducting the procedure and harvested 32 different organs which benefited 34 people. Organ donation is a worthwhile, kind and generous decision one could take in their lives. It is an ultimate

The organs that can be donated include heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, intestines and pancreas. The different types of tissues that can be donated include cornea, heart valves, bone and cartilage, skin, veins and tendons and ligaments. The benefits of organ and tissue donations are countless. In organ donation, heart transplants save patients suffering from coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy and congenital heart disease; lungs transplants save patients with diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis and emphysema; kidney transplants helps patients suffering from diabetes, polycystic kidney disease and hypertension; pancreas transplants proves to be an effective method to treat diabetes; liver transplants is helpful for patients with hepatitis and biliary atresia; and intestine transplants can be an option for patients suffering from short bowel syndrome along with other disorders. Tissue donation improves the quality of life of the recipients in a number of ways. They include reconstruction of crushed limbs to prevent amputation, prevention of blindness and restoration of vision, skin grafts for burn victims, coronary by-pass surgery and restoration of blood flow using saphenous veins, fusing of spinal defects to reduce pain, repair damaged cartilage and tendons, replacement of benign cystic bone defects and cancerous bone tumours to prevent

We are a big nation of over 1.2 billion people and it is a disappointing fact that only 0.08% per million people, which is extremely low, could be called as organ donors. There is a dire need in raising this figure and it is high time we step up our efforts in promoting Organ Donation. I think the first initiative should come from doctors as it is they who know if an organ donation is possible when a person dies. For example, an accident casualty can become a heart donor or a person who dies of a cardiac failure can become a donor of other organs and tissues like liver, bone, eyes, skin, etc. Also, when a doctor realises that a patient’s chances of survival are less than a year regardless of medical treatment, he should suggest the ‘noble cause’ with the patient and his or her family. Hospitals, both government and private, should form a network with an organ registry and a dedicated team, who can talk to the family members about organ donation and also increase awareness among common man. We should have more hospitals capable of organ transplants with well-equipped Intensive Care Units (ICU) and operation theatres to retrieve organs for harvesting. We should also have a system where it is compulsory to identify the brain-dead patients, thus, increasing the availability of organs. Following the footsteps of the West, the Government could also try an option where adults applying for driving