Organ Donation in India
NEED FOR ORGAN DONATION IN INDIA
Organ Donation in India needs lot of awareness and encouragement. The statistics for ‘Death due to Unavailability of Organs’ is very alarming.
Approximately 5 lakh people die every year due to non-availability of organs.
One person dies of kidney failure every 5 minutes, putting the yearly death due to kidney failures over 1,00,000.
There are only 301 hospitals in India which can undertake Organ Transplant, out of which only 148 are registered with NOTTO
There is only one hospital per 43 lakh people in India to handle organ donation and transplantation.
India’s Organ Donation Rate (ODR) is just 0.34%
ODR is Organ Donor per Million of the population. As compared to world – 36/million of population donate organs in Spain in 2014; 35/million donated in Croatia and 27/million donated in the United States. ODR of India is too low compared to the world.
Tamil Nadu has highest ODR in India. The state accounted for roughly 25% of the total donors in India.
Areas to improve ODR in India:
The approximate number of brain-deaths in India is around 1.5 lakhs. If every patient donated their organs, a large number of people could be saved.
More than 50% of the family members either refuse to donate the organs or are not aware about organ donation in India.
Family members of the brain dead patient should be motivated to donate the organs. Mannier times, due to lack of proper knowledge, family members disregard the will of the patient who consented to donate organs on demise. Proper education needs to imparted to citizens to improve ODR.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only about 0.01% in India donate their organs after death, while in Western countries around 70-80% of people pledge their organs.
This statistics brings a scope of improvement in pledging the organs. More canvassing of Organ Donation – its importance to the needy and their family members is to rightly showcased. Case studies should be brought to the notice of all the citizens. This will help in bringing change in the society and it will become more receptive to Organ Donation.