New Delhi: Last winter on a cold Monday morning, I went for a talk on organ donation at a school in Ghaziabad. It was the first time I’d gone to address children and was a bit apprehensive about the response. The session was a stupendous success and the 500 kids in that auditorium were open to the idea, understood everything and asked many many questions.
Towards the end a boy of Class 10 came up to me privately and asked me a question that completely stumped me for a bit. He said that he has been taught by his family Guru Ji that your soul resides in your heart. So he said if he gave away his heart, then his soul would never be at peace.
After a few seconds I asked him one thing. I told him he is fully entitled to his views and can say no to organ donation as is his right in this country. But I also asked him to consider what would happen if someone in his family, or his loved ones needed a heart transplant to survive. Then what? Would they go ahead with a life-saving surgery, or accept their fate. He looked thoughtful and then said he’d discuss it with his family.
And that is what we want. We want a discussion to start in every family where the implications of organ donation are discussed, so that in the unlikely event of a tragedy, at least everyone knows what their options are.
At any awareness session, we just want you to understand what organ donation is. We want you to know that if you express the desire to donate your organs then it will only happen after your death, that too only after the consent of your relatives. We want to you know that you can save 8 lives and help many more if you eventually end up donating your organs. We want you know that you can be a hero.
The real clincher was when a well educated friend said she wouldn’t pledge her organs because so many people told her that it would affect her next life. Depressing, but not surprising. This is just one of the many superstitions and misconceptions that plague the organ donation scenario in India.
It’s difficult to blame the public. Organ donation has so far had negative connotations in our country. It brings to mind the picture of a sleazy operator kidnapping kids to remove their kidneys, of illegal goings on at hospitals, and of clueless innocent people waking up with scars on their sides. The rest just don’t know anything about organ donation – something that the government has done little about in the past, leading to a dismal scenario in India.
India’s organ donation rate per million is .5 per million. And this is only after the last 3 years of activity in the government, private and NGO sectors. Before that it was .26 per million. Just for comparison, in the US the organ donation rate is approximately 26 per million, Spain is at 36 per million and Croatia is at 36.5 per million.
When we talk about pledging organs for organ donation, we are talking about deceased donations – organ donations after death. The main aspect of deceased organ donation that you have to understand is that it is only if you die a brain death, in a hospital while you are on a ventilator, then you can donate your organs. If you die at home or anywhere else and your heart stops beating, that is referred to as cardiac death, then you CANNOT donate your organs. This is because if your heart stops then the blood flow to your organs will stop within minutes, and your organs will die.
So only in the case of brain death, can there be organ donation. Society’s lack of understanding of Brain Death, and its acceptance of brain death as death, is the biggest impediment to organ donation. A brain death is usually caused by a severe brain injury due to accidents, strokes or brain hemorrhage.
It is estimated that around 5 lakh people need an organ transplant every year. Kidney failure, liver failure, heart failure are rampant, and with few organs available for transplantation, most of the people on the waiting list have a bleak future.
At the end of the day there is no getting around the need for a massive nationwide ad-campaign to make people aware of their choices. A lot of us will anyway not be in a position to donate our organs and will die somewhere outside of a hospital.
Those who are against organ donation after death for all sorts of reasons need to keep one thing in mind – we are all in this world together as a whole and there is no telling what will happen in the future to anyone. There may be a day that they themselves may need an organ to survive. And all those reasons to say no may not seem so logical then.
Sunayana is a former journalist and has worked at Newstrack, Aaj Tak and Newslaundry. She co-founded ORGAN India as an initiative of the Parashar Foundation in 2013, and now works full time in spreading awareness on organ donation through various initiatives such as holding organ donation awareness talks/sessions in colleges, schools, offices within and outside Delhi, creation of films, blogs, and online promotions. Helping those seeking organ transplants and guiding patients on their choices as well as the law is one of the main areas of her work and ORGAN India has recently launched a Transplant Guide for this purpose. She is also actively involved with NOTTO and works closely with them to bring organ donation to the public.
Disclaimer: Our website contains videos and information provided by third parties. These are provided for your information and convenience only and are not an endorsement by NDTV of their content.
All of the videos and information, are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis and without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.
To the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law, NDTV disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.