Bhubaneswar, Nov 28: Though over one million people in India suffered irreversible organ failure last year, a negligible number could be provided with organ transplantation due to small number of donations.
A meagre 3,500 donations were recorded during the year, official statistics reveal.
An estimated 9.5 million people die of various reasons every year of whom a large number could have been potential organ donors leading to the saving of scores of lives.
According to Dr Manoj Kumar Sahu, Head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatobiliary Sciences at the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital (IMSSH), “Of the large number of people who are on the waiting list to receive an organ, about 15,000 die while awaiting transplantation.”
Dr Sahu said people of all ages could donate a kidney, a portion of the liver and pancreas while he or she was alive and still continue to live a normal life.
But a person, if brain dead, could donate both the corneas, the heart, both lungs, both kidneys, whole liver, pancreas, intestine, skin, bone and tendons, he said.
