Wisdom & Knowledge: Chapter 6.2 - An Insight on Organ Donation

Karma has been something that has been influencing lives of people for as long as we know. For some, good karma is a way to have a peace of heart and mind whereas to some it’s a path to a better after life. And “Donation or Daan” has always been something with the power to cleanse your soul. We donate whatever we can, whenever we can to whoever we can to make their lives better, spread a little joy. But there’s so much more we can do. We don’t know if there’s something as afterlife or not; but what we do know is that we have the power to change someone’s life even after death. In a speaking engagement on Organ Donation by India’s Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, he pointed out that India alone has close to 5 Lakh deaths each year due to lack of organs for transplant. We have a ratio of 0.65 per 10 Lakh for organ donation, meaning just 1 in every 15.4 Lakhs; seems unbelievable but true.  As per a rough figure provided by the Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO) of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS):

1. We need of about 1.5 to 2 lakh kidney transplants a year, while only about 6,000 transplants actually happen.
2. Against 40,000-50,000 liver transplants required a year, about only 1,700-1,800 actually take place.
3. With an estimated need of about 50,000 heart transplants annually, only 17 take place each year.

We have come a long way from where we were a few years ago, corneal transplants have increased over the last many years but still there we have much more to attain on the path of organ donations. A brain dead patient is capable of donating heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver, and intestine including tissues like corneas, tissue and skin; within a restricted time frame to ensure adequate organ health for the receiver. The key challenge we need to tackle here is awareness, and not just making ourselves aware; but doctors & other hospital staff members must take up initiatives to clear any misconceptions in people on organ donation. Here’s a little debunking about organ donation for you:

Myth	Fact
Decision to donate eyes has to be taken by the donor.	Decision to donate can be made by the next of kin. But you can still register yourself as an organ donor and discuss the same with your family. (https://www.organindia.org/)
Donating eyes disfigures the body of deceased.	Donation of eyes doesn’t lead to disfigurement of the body of the deceased.
People with poor eyesight cannot donate eyes.	Even those with improper eyesight and cataract can be donors.
Organ transplant must happen immediately after death.	For most organs such as eyes, heart and lungs the organs can be surgically removed up to 6 hours of brain dead state, although preferable at the earliest. With advances in medical technology, other organs remain viable for a specific time frame even outside our body: Heart & Lungs: 4 – 6 hours Liver: 8 – 12 hours Kidney: 24 – 36 hours Tissue: Can be stored for as long as needed

Many a times people also question the process of treatment of a person if he/she is a registered donor e.g. the doctor may not provide you with the best possible treatment because he knows you are a donor. An organ donation can happen only once the patient is brain dead i.e. a state of no recovery. That’s when the idea of donation is discussed with the family and worked upon therefore.

On occasions people come up and state that the soul doesn’t go on to the afterlife. Riddle me this, does your God or religion not say that there’s no bigger gift than the gift of life? Every belief system out there asks us to use every opportunity to help others, in the very possible way we can. Here we have it, an opportunity to save a life, and that won’t cost us anything.

I know there would be still more questions you might have, talk to your doctor about them; they will surely clear all your doubts on this. (You can also refer https://notto.gov.in/)