PGI to celebrate Organ Donation Day on Aug 7

CHANDIGARH: In an effort to boost organ transplantation in the city, the PGI's department of renal transplant surgery will be celebrating Organ Donation Day on Friday. The department has planned an organ awareness camp in the new OPD block from 10am to 2 pm where the general public will be apprised of the concept of brain death and organ donation. People who want to donate organs after death will be educated about the importance of organ donor cards and can register during that period.
Moreover, there will be talks regarding the deceased organ donation in the institute by various faculty members of the institute. Vijay Kumar Dev, UT adviser, will honor the families that donated organs last year at PGI. The meeting will end with organ recipients sharing their journey from illness to recovery, the agonizing wait for an organ and how their lives were transformed after transplant.
The doctors in the field of transplantation feel that the problem of low donation rates can be easily overcome as the willingness to donate organs among people is rising. They believe that the awareness is lacking not only among the common people but also to some extent among the medical fraternity. The total number of organ transplants being carried out each year in the country is about 4,000 for a population of 1.2 billion whereas for a developed country like the US, which has about 1/3 of India's population, does about five times the number of organ transplants as being done in our country.
The PGI had started deceased donor transplant on July 3, 1996. Over the last few years, the number of deceased donor transplants has steadily increased to about 20 per year. In addition to the ongoing kidney transplant program, the PGI has also initiated liver and heart transplants. The department has also recently started pancreas transplant program.