1,150 pledge organs during campaign

PUDUCHERRY: India, with a population of over 1.21 billion people, lags behind other nations in terms of organ donation, Lieutenant Governor Iqbal Singh said on Sunday. He was addressing participants of the ‘Give Life Campaign,’ an organ donation programme organised by Gathering Resources at Time in Aid to Society (GRATIAS) here on Sunday.While over one lakh Indians suffer from end-state renal disease annually, a mere 3,000 are recipients of a donor kidney, the LG pointed out.  “Thus, the major problem facing transplant surgery is the acute shortage of available organs, due to which thousands of precious lives are lost every year,” he said. “With 70 per cent of the 1.4 lakh accident victims every year being diagnosed as brain dead, the country has 80,000 potential organ donors. However, organs are retrieved from only about a hundred brain-dead persons, thus making the percentage of donations a miniscule 0.3 per cent,” he added.As part of Friday’s campaign, around 1,150 persons came forward to pledge their organs. Organ transplantation is considered one of the greatest advances of modern science that has given many patients a renewed lease of life,  Iqbal Singh said.“Even 18 years after the enactment of the Transplantation of Human Organ Act, organ donation is still in its infancy in our country,” he added. The Lieutenant Governor pointed out that human-to-human transplantation of organs has been regarded by doctors as a major treatment protocol and often, the only option for potentially fatal ailments like end-stage renal disease. “The successful implementation of organ donation largely rests on the education of  people and having more trained doctors who can serve as transplant specialists. Many of us fail to realise that by consigning the whole body to flames, we are actually denying a chance for seven patients in critical stages to have a fresh lease of life,” he said.