‘In India, every day nearly 6,000 people die waiting for organ transplant’

From our Correspondent

MANGALDAI, Feb 18: The worldwide campaign for creating awareness on organ dotion, though has been receiving increasing response from the certain circles, yet some questions are required to be answered properly only to quench the thirst of knowledge of the common minds.  Who is the competent authority to declare a patient to be brain dead? What percentage of damage of an organ is treated for transplantation? Whom in Assam and how to contact for organ dotion? Whether the body of an organ donor after dotion is handed over to the family members?

These were the few among the volleys of questions raised by a section of curious participants in the organ dotion awareness programme organized for the first time in Darrang district at Youth Club Hall at Mangaldai on Friday afternoon. Intertiolly acclaimed transplant super specialist, Padmashree recipient surgeon and a worthy son of Darrang, Dr. Sarbeswar Sahariah took part in the campaign as the principal speaker. Premier non-government organizations Crystal Vision of Mangaldai and North East Care Foundation of Guwahati jointly organized the campaign in Darrang district.

In an open interaction with the participants, Dr Sahariah replied to the relevant queries raised by several participants including Pappu Kabeer, Dr. Joy Kanta Saharia, Dr. Kamala Kanta Bora, Rani Devi, Dr N C Beria, Renu Bordoloi, Swar Prabha Kalita, Dr. Amanul Haque and others and at the same time offered his gratitude to the people of Mangaldai for showing deep interest in the subject of organ dotion which is quite new for most of the common public.

Earlier, Dr Sahariah in his discussion with power point presentation and recent statistical data, explained in details the alarming situation of growing cases of organ failures. “In India every day nearly 6,000 people die waiting for organ transplant. Every 17 minutes someone dies waiting for organ transplant and in every 13 minutes someone is added to the waiting list,” said Dr. Saharia.  To highlight the dismal scerio of organ dotion in India, not to speak of Assam, he said that the number of donors among one million people on an average was less than one. He also cited the example of the president of Mangaldai Chambers of Commerce, Pradip Das who lost his life recently due to lack of a suitable organ donor. He said that diabetes and the high blood pressure were two major factors of organ failure and urged people to prevent these two diseases for a better life and also urged the media to play a pivotal part in this regard. Prior to his discussion, Dr Sahariah presented a short film prepared on the real stories of some organ donors, including that of six-month old Sourya, the youngest organ donor in the world on whom transplantation was successfully carried out in the Hyderabad based medical institute KIMS.

The programme, presided over by senior surgeon and progressive writer Dr Rama Kanta Bora, came to an end with the vote of thanks from Pankaj Goswami of North East Care and Foundation. Earlier, Additiol Deputy Commissioner of Darrang, Bidyut Bikash Bhagawati iugurated the session with the ceremonial lightening of the lamp while Mayukh Goswami of Crystal Vision explained its objectives.