About Organ Donation

Organ Donation

Organ donation is the process of giving an organ or a part of an organ for the purpose of transplantation into another person.
In order for a person to become an organ donor, blood and oxygen must flow through the organs until the time of recovery to ensure viability. This requires that a person die under circumstances that have resulted in an irreparable neurological injury, usually from massive trauma to the brain such as aneurysm, stroke or automobile accident. Only after all efforts to save the patient’s life have been exhausted, tests are performed to confirm the absence of brain or brain stem activity, and brain death has been declared, is donation a possibility. The state donor registry is searched to determine if the patient has personally consented to donation. If the potential donor is not found on the registry, his or her legally authorized representative (usually a spouse, relative or close friend) is offered the opportunity to authorize the donation. Once the donation decision is established, the family is asked to provide a medical and social history. Donation professionals determine which organs can be transplanted and to which patients on the national transplant waiting list the organs are to be allocated.
Organ donation can occur with:

· A Deceased donor, who can give kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs, heart, intestinal organs
· A Living donor, who can give a kidney, or a portion of the liver, lung, intestine, or pancreas

Organ Donation in India

In 1994, the Government of India passed the Transplantation of Human Organs Act that legalized the concept of brain death and, for the first time, facilitated organ procurement from heart beating, brain dead donors. However, this concept has not caught on well in India for want of public education and awareness. This in turn is perpetuating the commercial sale of human organs due to the widening gap between the demand and supply. Thousands of lives are lost in India annually from heart and liver failure since transplantation of unpaired organs like heart, liver and pancreas is either difficult or impossible from living donors. This is only possible on a large scale if these organs are available from cadaver donors.
 
In the United States, in 2004, there were over 14,000 organ donors – an increase of 695 donors (7%) over 2003. During this time the number of cadaver donors grew by 11% to 7,152, the largest annual increase in deceased donors in the last 10 years. In 2005, the number of kidneys transplanted from cadavers was 9,914, while the number of patients who received transplants from living donors was 6,563.