It was a felicitation function hosted by the Governor at the Raj Bhavan’s grand, chandelier-lit Darbar Hall.
Among the people responsible for saving lives through organ transplant surgeries, the families of the donors have rarely been recognised for the difficult decision they have to make at a moment of grief. Marking the cause, the Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network Foundation honoured a total of 26 families who were presented with mementos by K. Rosaiah, the Governor of Tamil Nadu at Raj Bhawan on Thursday.
Early identification of brain dead patients in critical care units and mandatory certification of brain death in all government and private hospitals by neuro-surgeons will be crucial for the State’s Deceased Donor Organ Transplantation programme to take off, a team of doctors and transplant coordinators from Multi-Organ Harvesting Aid Network (MOHAN) Foundation, one of the key facilitators for Kerala’s multi-organ transplant programme, has pointed out.
The state government should find a provision for providing special driving licenses to motorists who wish to donate their organs after they die, said Dr Sumana Navin, Mohan Foundation, Chennai.
Dr. Sumanth Raman and Dr. George Paul’s articles (Open Page, June 17) merit a response to set the record straight. To pay or not to pay is the fundamental question in this whole debate on organ donation. The answer lies very simply in the fulfilment of the four basic principles of medical ethics: Autonomy, Beneficence, Non-malfeasance and Justice. Does the deceased organ donation programme fulfil these criteria?
For Jalandhar-based Varinder Kumar, 59, a recipient of a liver transplant, Pakistan will always be remembered with a moist eye and a warm heart. After all, he owes his life to a woman there.
In their article, (Open Page, June 10, 2012), Dr. Shroff and Dr. Navin have argued that cadaver transplant is the only answer to the demand for organs. I agree that cadaver transplants and the role played by MOHAN in recruiting potential organ donors in the event of their death are a meaningful exercise.
This is in response to the article ‘Organ donation-looking beyond tokenism' written by Dr. Sunil Shroff and Dr. Sumana Navin (Open Page, June 10), in response to my earlier article, ‘Organ donation: is tokenism costing lives?' (Open Page, May 27, 2012).
In February 2012, a group of corporate, government and non-governmental organisations came together to sensitise their employees and members to organ donation. Many people pledged to donate their organs after death and undertook to carry a donor card.
A few weeks ago, an article in the papers spoke of a State where some organisations had created a database of those willing to donate organs and had enrolled 13,000 people within a month of their commencing the initiative. With the country facing an acute scarcity of organs for transplant, this must surely have been welcome news.
