I was standing in the design department when I saw Bhupesh Bhandari quietly walk out of the door with his laptop bag slung on his shoulder, the way he would on any other day. As he punched his card at the exit, he briefly turned to look around the office he had worked in for 17 years. Bhupesh, who was the editor of Business Standard Weekend, was scheduled for a major surgery, a kidney transplant, later that week.
It had been several months since he had learnt that his kidneys were shutting down, and he had immediately registered for an organ transplant. He and his family had also approached various NGOs across India, made trips to Chennai, a frontrunner in organ donation, and reached out to hospitals, friends and family. But the queue of people awaiting transplant was long and there simply weren’t enough donors. Ultimately, given his vulnerable condition, his wife decided to donate one of her kidneys and though her blood group wasn’t a match, the doctors assured them that such a surgery, too, could be successful. In his case, it wasn’t.
Post-surgery, the first message I received from Bhupesh from hospital was a couplet by Ghalib, his favourite and oft-quoted poet: “Runj se khugar hua insaan to mit jaata hai runj/ Mushkilein mujh par padi itni ke aasaan ho gayi (When a person becomes habituated to sorrow, then sorrow disappears/So many difficulties have befallen me, that they have become easy).”
Bhupesh went on dialysis thereafter. He and his wife kept their morale high. Their search for a kidney match continued. Twice he talked about how they had got a call from hospital about a possible match. And how they had waited on tenterhooks through the night. On one occasion, the prospective donor’s family backed out at the last minute. On another, the donor’s kidney proved compatible for the person listed before him for transplant.
After a long struggle, Bhupesh finally got a compatible kidney, underwent a second transplant and was recovering at home when he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. Who knows if things would have been different had he found a compatible kidney in the first instance.
India fares very poorly when it comes to organ donation, with a rate among the lowest in the world. According to data on the health ministry’s website, every year, 500,000 people die because of non-availability of organs; 150,000 await a kidney transplant but only 5,000 get them; 50,000 need a heart transplant; and there are hundreds of thousands more who need liver or corneal transplants. These are old figures from 2015. Various agencies working in the area of organ donation and transplant cite slightly different numbers, but each talks about the woeful inadequacy of organs available for transplant. In 2017, for example, organs from a 0.009 per cent of those who died were donated.
Organs from one donor can save up to eight lives and tissue donation can help heal up to 50 people. But organ donation isn’t usually on our personal to-do list. For one, to consider donating our organs, we have to first come to terms with our own mortality. And also deal with sociocultural factors, myths, superstitions and beliefs — the idea of rebirth being one. A close relative, for example, believes that if he donates an organ, he’ll be reborn without it. Which is a strange argument, considering that we end up destroying all our organs when we choose cremation or burial.
Some worry that the doctors might mistakenly declare them brain dead and harvest their organs if they have pledged them. Well, that never happens. In India, a panel of four doctors has to declare a person brain dead for the organs to be harvested. To be absolutely certain, they do so only after conducting a series of exhaustive tests that are repeated in six hours.
A practical concern, however, is: how should one go about donating one’s organs? It’s quite simple actually. You can register with the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO, www.notto.gov.in), the nodal networking agency for procurement and distribution of organs. Or, register online with the NGOs working in this area such as the Mohan Foundation (mohanfoundation.org), Organ India (organindia.org), Shatayu (shatayu.org.in) and Gift Your Organ (giftyourorgan.org). These work in conjunction with NOTTO or the Regional or State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisations (ROTTO, SOTTO) and also issue organ donation cards.
While anyone can pledge their organs, irrespective of their age or perceived health condition, it is critical to have the family on board because whatever your choice may be, it is their decision that will ultimately prevail.
Every year, August 13 is observed as Organ Donation Day. It so happens that on August 12 it will be two years since Bhupesh passed away.
veenu.sandhu@bsmail.in
