Body Donors On The Rise For Researches In Medical Colleges of Assam

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Assam has witnessed a rise in the number of people including those from the Muslim community donating their bodies for scientific researches.

Bodies of nearly 100 people have so far gone to dissection halls of medical colleges in the State.

Ellora Vigyan Mancha, an NGO that pioneered the movement of body and organ donations in the State, said that the number of people who have pledged their bodies is on the rise. Over 1,000 people have already signed agreements to donate their bodies.

An office bearer of the Mancha said awareness for such a great cause is also spreading fast among the Muslim community in the State, which was otherwise very conservative on the issue. He said while three Muslims have already donated their bodies, the number of people taking the pledge is rising.

“Among those who have already donated their bodies, one was Surjya Brata Lahkar, 86, from the Rehabari area in Guwahati. Interestingly, Lahkar’s mother became a sati in 1939. Sati was a practice in which widows were voluntarily or forcibly burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyre. I have mentioned Lahkar’s mother to draw the point that a family whose past generation believed in superstition has now come forward to donate bodies for scientific research. Such development will go a long way to inspire more people to donate their bodies in the future,” the office bearer said.

But the fact remains that the medical colleges in the State are still suffering from an acute shortage of cadavers in the absence of a proactive role of the State Government on the issue. The government has to create the necessary infrastructure and facilities to encourage people to donate their bodies and organs.

“It is best when one cadaver is shared among six to eight students. But now the position is such that 20 to 30 students dissect one body,” a professor at Tezpur Medical College said.

“When bodies of victims of accidents or violence arrive, they have to be dissected during autopsy. As such, the formaldehyde that is used to preserve bodies seeps out through the cuts. Hence, these bodies start decomposing soon,” a professor at the Gauhati Medical College said. A body should be donated within 24 hours of a person’s death.

Medical students study the human anatomy during the first two years of their academic course. Initially, groups of them study a body dividing it into three or four sections. However, at the post-graduate level, students ideally require one body each, depending on their area of specialization.

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