Organ donation in the literal sense means the giving of an organ by an alive or a dead person, with legal consent to another person needing it. The person who gives his/her organ is called the Donor and the person who receives the organ is called Donee.
The donations can be made for various reasons ranging from social sustainability to scientific research. Whichever the case may be, the organ donated is put to great to use by either saving the life of a Donee or by researching for transplantation in future.
13th of August marks the World Organ Donation Day
Interestingly PGI, Chandigarh has been celebrating Organ Donation Week from 7th to 13th August since 1996. The first organ to be donated was a kidney and was made in 1954. The Organ donation day/week is dedicated to promoting organ donation and removing any taboos or hesitation which people have against donating organs.
Why people hesitate doing organ donation
The primary reasons for such hesitations are lack of education, awareness and religious taboos. Religions prohibiting organ donations do not fully understand the reasons and the benefits of such a method. Moreover, their lies an underlying contradiction that no religion would propagate to not help a dying person.
Who can do organ donation
There are two types of Organ donation namely Live Donation or Deceased Donation. Living donors can donate their organ or a part of their organ to someone in need during their life which includes:
- one of the kidneys,
- one of the two lobes of the liver
- a part of/ or one of the lungs.
A deceased donor can donate the organs pledged/ assented to be donated are removed from a dead body as soon as possible which includes:
- heart,
- liver,
- kidneys,
- lungs,
- pancreas,
- eyes and cornea
- small intestine
- tissues including bone tissue, heart valves, tendons, ligaments, veins,
- bones
Let’s pledge for organ donation
Thus, it becomes all the more necessary to celebrate such days in order to make people more aware about various ways and modes to help others. The need of the hour is further accentuated due to the fact that, in 2014 while 36 persons per million of population donated organs in Spain , as compared to only 0.34 who donated in India. An alarming 5 lakh people died in India due to non-availability of organs last year. Hence we need more people to donate organs, because who needs super heroes when a human can save another human by giving them a gift of life?