Donating an organ is a noble cause. Organ donation is the entire practice of retrieving a human organ from a living or deceased person, who is referred to as the donor. The person who gets the transplanted organ is the recipient. The most common is eye donation. World over, August 13, is observed as World Organ Donation Day. NGOs, hospitals, health professionals globally spread the message of the importance of organ donation.
Roughly 5 lakh people die annually in India due to lack of an organ donor. Reportedly, less than one per million people opt to donate organs. So, the organ donation rate in our country is one of the lowest in the world. One of the key reasons is lack of awareness followed by the desire to donate and various myths. Even when a patient is brain dead, he or she is capable of saving six lives. A deceased person’s heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver, and intestine can be donated to save lives.
All about Organ Donation
As per law, organ and tissue donation cannot take place in India without the written consent of the donor’s family. So while you may want to be an organ donor, you need to take your family into confidence for the same. Make them understand the reason behind your decision to be an organ donor. In your absence it is your family which has to go ahead and take the right decision. The family’s consent is crucial.
The other way is for the deceased’s family to give consent for organ donation. Many hospitals in the country have counsellors who brief the family about organ donation when a patient dies.
Several organs and tissues can be donated. A person can pledge kidney, lungs, heart, eye, liver, pancreas, cornea, small intestine, skin and bone tissues, heart valves, and veins. A person can also pledge blood stem cells, cord blood, and bone marrow. In order to be successful, the patient and the blood stem cell donor must have a closely matched tissue type or human leukocyte antigen (HLA).
Critical Facts
In India, organ donations are legal under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA), 1994. Anyone of good health can be an organ donor irrespective of age. Anyone younger than 18 years needs the consent of the family to be a donor. Health is a state subject in the country and as a result, each state has its own nodal agency in charge of the allocation of human organs. The hospital waiting list for all organs is linked to the State Nodal Agency. This is further linked to the concerned Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO). Their list is in turn linked to the National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO). This forms the National Waiting-List Registry.
A decision about an organ’s usability is made at the time of the donor’s death. In case of living persons, it is done at the pre-transplant stage. For more details on organ donation log onto Organ Donation resource website.
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