During Ganesh and Durga festivals, the college displays banners highlighting the importance of organ donation outside pandals.Darne said the college also will arrange a special function in the college on August 13 which is Organ Donation Day.
Should hospitals rely solely on donor hearts from brain dead patients whose hearts were still beating? Tamil Nadu state organ transplant registry convener Dr J Amalorpavanathan has been assailed by this question from different stakeholders -patients, transplant surgeons and medical students.
The act of donating an organ is altruistic, but transplantation is way too expensive for most middle class people and certainly for the poor. In India, about 90% of transplants are carried out in the private sector and cost lakhs of rupees.
For the very first time in Pune and indeed across the state, a group of citizens have come together with the common aim of spreading awareness about organ donation and transplants. The campaign will be guided by the Zonal Transplant and Coordination Committee (ZTCC) of Pune.
India was once a country where the poor received a pittance for selling their organs, while a section of doctors, hospitals and brokers cashed in on what was then a lucrative trade.
To honour donors whose organs helped save many lives and their families who consented to the donation, Fortis Malar Hospital in the city has set up a Wall of Tribute on its premises. Relatives of people whose organs had been donated participated in the dedication of the wall.
Increasing levels of awareness have ensured that the number of people coming forward to donate their organs after death has gone up three times in the last three years, from 190 in 2012 to 570 in 2015.
Police in Mumbai said they suspect a criminal gang which preys on poor people for their organs is behind a kidney transplant racket at a top hospital, the latest such case in India where a shortage of organs is fuelling a black-market trade.
Police in Mumbai said they suspect a criminal gang which preys on poor people for their organs is behind a kidney transplant racket at a top hospital, the latest such case in India where a shortage of organs is fuelling a black-market trade.
It was during a visit to a Chennai colony over 20 years ago that one became painfully aware of the disturbing practice of organ trade. The vulnerable residents there, largely living with leprosy, were targeted by middle-men to sell their kidney to individuals who desperately needed one.
