THE Lord Mayor of Chester greeted an intrepid campaigner who had just completed a gruelling 83-day drive from Mumbai to London. Cllr Alex Black and wife Janet welcomed Bhal Shekhar Chilana and his wife Namita to the city on the evening of Saturday, July 14.
Almost a decade after the State government made it mandatory for organ transplant centres to display the cost range for transplant surgeries on their website, a majority of such authorised centres have yet to adhere to the Government Order issued to this effect in 2008.
An individual who has donated her kidney is unlikely to be eligible for a health cover. “This, despite the fact that the donor can perform all routine activities without any hurdles,” says Lalitha Raghuram, country director, Mohan Foundation, an NGO involved in promoting organ donation.
Data from Mohan Foundation, an NGO working in the field of organ donation, shows a kidney transplant can cost upwards of Rs 5-8 lakh, while a heart transplant can set you back by Rs 22-28 lakh, as can a liver transplant.
As part of a study to improve facilities for organ donation in government hospitals, an official of Mohan Foundation, Mumbai, on Tuesday visited Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) as well as Super Specialty Hospital to review the infrastructure.
A social group pushing for a change in the driving licence application form to allow an applicant to pledge for his/her organ donation has welcomed the government move on this, saying awareness and easy process will encourage people to donate organs.
In the video on his mother’s phone, Arjun Shamat is dancing with his youngest sister; just another kid goofing off. Who could have known then that a few months later he would be dead? “He never left home without informing me,” says Raj Kumari, his mother, a domestic worker.
State medical education minister Girish Mahajan recently wrote to the Tata Trust for help in creating a mechanism to boost cadaver donation in Maharashtra. Mr Mahajan requested the Tata Trust to design a model urging government hospitals to identify and declare brain-dead patients and counsel their families to donate organs.
As per a study conducted by Mohan Foundation, an NGO, the number of youth pledging their organs has increased manifold. 81% of the pledges for organ donation signed between 2010 and 2018 were by those in the 18-40 age group. The largest group of signatories—22,850 out of the 43,792 pledges—was from the 21-30 age group.
Fifteen-year-old Mumbai resident Vaibhav Sanghavi had just completed his Class X exams in 2016 when he was asked a question that is rarely asked to someone so young: Would he consent to donate the organs of his 44-year-old mother who had just been declared brain dead? As their father was long dead, it was left to Vaibhav and younger brother Ravi to decide.
