Organ transplantation has become an established and life-saving treatment for patients like Surat’s 66-year-old Mayank Patel who faced many constraints for several years till he was donated a kidney by a brain-dead person.
Mayank and his family are thankful to 46-year-old Geetaben Bharatbhai Parmar whose kidney provided him a lease of life and freedom from dialysis. They are also thankful to State Organ and tissue transplant Organisation SOTTO for finding him a donor in Geetaben who unfortunately died in a road accident.
Geetaben’s other kidney was transplanted in a 39-year-old youth from Bardoli, who was frustrated after a long battle he fought with the help of dialysis. He had lost hope as he had registered himself with Gujarat State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) two years ago but had no luck in finding a donor.
This Bardoli youth was lucky in finding a donor but the ground reality in India is much worse as more than 1 million patients are waiting for a cornea transplant, more than 50,000 are in line for a heart transplant and more than 20,000 require a lung transplant as there is a huge gap between demand and supply in organ donation in India.
As per the data the donation rate in India is 0.5 per million which is one of the lowest in the world. In contrast, Spain has a donation rate of 36 per million whereas Germany and the United States have donation rates of 11 and 26 respectively.
The number of organ transplants performed in the country has increased from a mere 4990 in 2013 to 12,746 in 2019. According to the data available on the website of the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (DoDT), India is now in the top three after the USA and China.
In a way, there has been a four-fold increase in the rate of organ donation compared to 2012-13. If we look at available data, 1013 organs and tissues have been donated by Donate life, including which 428 kidneys, 182 livers, 8 pancreases, 40 hearts, 26 lungs, 4 hands, and 330 eyes giving new life to a total of 931 persons.
In Ahmedabad civil hospital alone 297 organs have been donated by 80 patients which included 69 livers, 30 kidneys, 9 pancreas, 21 hearts, 6 hands, 9 lungs, and 44 eyes.
Dr. Pranjal Modi of Gujarat State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organization says that the state is increasingly becoming aware of the issue of organ donation but it is still less than required. Gujarat State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation’s data shows that 54 percent of the hearts were transplanted outside the state. In the last one and half years, 11 hearts were donated which 5 were transplanted in Gujarat and the rest went to the patients from Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and New Delhi. These transplants were done according to the guidelines of the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO).
Also Read: How A Tiny Gujarat Town Has Become India’s Kidney Capital
