NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, AUG 13
On the occasion of World Organ Donation Day, Kidney Hospital or the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre (IKDRC) has decided to create awareness about organ donation through online platforms to quash the impact of Covid-19, a top official of the hospital said.
“Organ pledging is a logical conclusion of organ donation awareness but in Covid-19 times we are left with the option of online space to convince people,” Dr Vineet Mishra, Director, IKDRC-ITS said adding that organ donation drives have virtually stopped due to Covid-19 scare.
As per the reports, the number of transplants done annually has been rising gradually but despite this, the current organ donation rate is poor in India. India stands at 0.86 per million population when compared to 46.9 in Spain and 31.96 per million population in the United States. However, India still performs the second largest number of transplants in the world, next only to the USA.
“If people understand the importance of the gift of life through organ donation, we can easily meet the demand of organs with a modest target of 1 person per million population,” emphasized Dr Mishra adding that waiting list of organ recipients will vanish with the increase in deceased donor organ donations.
The institute is planning to send organ donation pledge links to government employees, schools, colleges, relatives of transplant patients, community and religious organizations, reads the statement.
Though there is no data available for Gujarat, an estimated 1.8 lakh people suffer from renal failure while two lakh people die of liver failure in India.
IKDRC has already completed around 6,500 organ transplants in the last 25 years. The deceased donor kidney transplants fell to 19 by March 2020 which stood at 87 last year. The deceased donor kidney transplantation stood merely at 943 in the last 13 years which is directly related to poor awareness about organ donation in Gujarat.
World Organ donation day is observed on August 13 every year. This day strives to motivate people to donate their healthy and precious organs after death.
One person’s decision to donate his organs after death could save up to 8 lives as eight organs can be harvested from a brain dead person and transplanted in eight different people.
