Strong need of creating awareness on organ donation: Experts

With less than one per cent organ donation rate in India, there is a strong need of creating more awareness among people about the initiative, said health experts.

At "More to Give", an event organised by Fortis Healthcare and NDTV on the occasion of Kargil Diwas, health experts pitched for strong support from the government to take ahead the organ donation initiative.

"Half a million people die for not receiving organs at the right time. There is a need to create organ donation awareness and the government should take efforts by coming up with a large scale campaign. Brain-dead entity should be recognised in hospitals and license should be provided to all the states," K.R. Balakrishnan, Director, Cardiac Sciences, Fortis Hospital told IANS.

The health experts expressed their apprehensions on lack of proper knowledge about organ donation and myths surrounding it that is affecting the initiative.

"There are many doubts among people which can be cleared through direct communication. Organ donation is still not publicly accepted as much as blood donation is. One of the biggest challenge about organ donation is to convince people about brain death because the body is warm and patient is still breathing," said Aarti Vij, Professor, Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation at the event.

For the health experts, removing myths surrounding organ donation is the biggest challenge, which they expect can be achieved through proper and efficient awareness and education.

"Information education and awareness biggest challenge for donation. If the preconceptions and stigma are removed than a lot can be done for organ donation. Not just the government, but private hospitals too have the responsibility towards organ donation awareness," said Bhavdeep Singh, CEO, Fortis Healthcare.

Experts also said that healthcare infrastructure must be improved.

"Healthcare infrastructure needs to be improved, particularly in tier two and three cities. Medical professionals earlier were not that aware of organ implementation but a lot has evolved in past few years. And the process of training them has began," said Balakrishnan.

The importance on developing technology was also stressed.

"Green corridor has been helping a lot for smooth transportation of organs but the truth is it is not a substitute for good infrastructure. Technology needs to be improved more so that the organs can be preserved for more time," added Singh.

--IANS

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