IMA Kalyan ties up with LH Hiranandani Hospital to compile data about voluntary organ donors and also record their consent letters.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in
This one’s a great initiative to increase the numbers of organ donors in the city.
Indian Medical Association (IMA), Kalyan has come up with a plan with LH Hiranandani Hospital to create a voluntary registry of organ donors with details of people who are willing to donate their organs and their consent letters. The registry will contain the consent letters of those willing to donate their organs and their health status along with other details.
At the moment, about 7 kidney donations happen every month, and about 4 liver donations. These numbers need to be much higher – for this, more awareness is essential. During a recent programme at the hospital, around 350 doctors and more than 500 people came forward from various walks of life to give their consent letters to join the registry, said Dr Anjum Syed, President, IMA Kalyan and gynaecologist attached with various hospitals in the region.
Heart Transplant surgeon Dr Anvay Mule said “There are thousands of patients who are waiting with hope. Such activities are required to create awareness and increase organ donation.”
Elaborating on the organ donation scenario in India, Dr Syed, said, “Figures show that India’s current organ donation is 0.05 per million populations (about 50 cadaver donors per year). The number of transplants per year is in the range of 3,000 to 3,500 with barely 5% coming from brain dead patients. The annual requirement is about 1, 50,000 donations. However, if we can improve it even to 1 per million donations, we could take care of some of the organ shortages in India. At 1 per million donation rate, we would have 1,100 organ donors which could take care of almost all current demands for organs in India.”
“The rate of renal transplants in our country is actually quite dismal, as more than 1,00,000 patients are waiting for renal transplants, and less than 5,000 happen every year. It is much worse for cadaver transplants as less than 1,000 happen per year. In comparison, Mumbai city does less than 300 renal transplants every year, of which only 30 to 40 will be cadaver donations. So the people requiring dialysis has steadily gone up, putting a lot of strain on the infrastructure to accommodate all these patients,” added Dr Syed.
| ORGAN DONATION | KIDNEY | LIVER | LUNGS | CORNEA | HEART |
| LIVE ORGAN DONATIONS FROM 1995-2015 | 8,061 | 202 | – | – | NA |
| CADAVERIC (FROM BRAIN DEAD PATIENT) | 546 | 150 | 2 | 19,285 (from June 2006 to June 2015 | 3 |
Requirement in Mumbai and Thane
| KIDNEY | LIVER | LUNGS | CORNEA | HEART |
| 2800 | 210 | – | – | 10 |
Source: Maha Arogya Seva Mandal, Thane
“Aiming at increasing the number of donors by creating awareness on organ donation is required. From increasing the current 5,000 to lakhs and more, IMA Kalyan has joined hands with many private hospitals to spread awareness on importance of organ donation. This is the first step to reach among the educative society,” says Dr Syed.
Dr Pravin Shingare, ZTCC committee member, added, “Our aim is to remove misunderstandings among public regarding organ donation.”
(Featured image courtesy zeenews.india.com)