Why Pledge Your Organ?

By being an organ donor you can save the lives of 7 individuals by way of organ donation and enhance the lives of over 50 people by way of tissue donation.

At present, most organs for transplants come from living donors, whereby these donors may legally only be the immediate family. As a result, only a small percentage of organ seekers are able to find compatible and keen donors. An alternative is deceased donation where organs are retrieved from a person declared brain dead. Due to the extremely low number of deceased donations, most people awaiting transplant breathe their last.

Did you know?

In India every year nearly
• 500,000 people who die because of non-availability of organs
• 1,50,000 people await a kidney transplant. Of which, only 5000 get a transplant whereby only
• 2 lakh people die of liver disease,
• 50,000 from heart disease and
• 10 lakh people suffer from corneal blindness and await transplant

Tamil Nadu is the most active state for organ donation in India. Following it is Karnataka, Maharashtra & Andhra Pradesh.

The Zonal Co-ordination Committee for Transplants in Karnataka (ZCCK), is a government body overlooking the entire organ transplantation process in the state of Karnataka. According to ZCCK over the past 5 years only 32 deceased organ donations have taken place in Karnataka.

Year: Deceased organ donation
• 2007: 3
• 2008: 2
• 2009: 11
• 2010: 8
• 2011: 6
• 2012: 2

Considering Karnataka is one of the more active states for this cause, the numbers shown are almost insignificant.

Nationally, with a population of 1.2 Billion people, the statistic stands at 0.08 Persons as organ donors per million population (PMP). This is an incredibly small and insignificant number compared to the statistics around the world. Countries like USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands have a 'family consent' system for donations where people sign up as donors, and their family's consent is required. Other countries like Singapore, Belgium, Spain have a more aggressive approach of 'presumed consent', which permits organ donation by default unless the donor has explicitly opposed it during his lifetime. These countries have seen the donations double Per Million Population (PMP), averaging between 20-40 PMP.

According to Sri Ramachandra Research Medical College & Research Center, at any given time there are 8 to 10 brain dead patients in different ICU's in any major city of the country. There is hence potentially a huge pool of brain death donors available in India. If these families are made aware and donate the organs of their loved ones this could potentially impact the lives of at least 500 people.

If each and every one of us chooses to pledge our organs, it will completely change the transplant scenario. It is important to understand that because you have pledged your organ doesn’t necessarily mean you will become an organ donor. There is a very small chance that you will be in a situation where donation will be a reality. But, that must not stop you from making the pledge. All it takes is one person to save the lives of up to 50 other human beings. And who knows- that one person might just be you!