KOLKATA: The pandemic has slowed down the deceased organ donation movement, but hospitals and non-profit organisations on Friday, the World Organ Donation Day, pledged to carry on the work despite the changed circumstances.
Bengal recorded only six donations in 2020, but this year, there have already been nine donations, five of which were in July.
While SSKM Hospital has been the only government facility here from where patients’ families pledged organs of their brain-dead relatives, a good number of private hospitals have started declaring brain deaths to pave the way for organ donation.
ROTTO joint director Arpita Ray Chaudhury pointed at the important roles of intensive care doctors, who could be game-changers by identifying brain death, that of transplant coordinators and the coordination between private and public healthcare. “Every year, around 50,000 patients suffer heart failure, many of them requiring urgent transplant. We, as doctors, can only do the surgery, but people should come forward to join hands in the cause,” said Narayana Superspeciality Hospital (NSH) Howrah cardiac surgeon Debasis Das.
The ROTTO joint director was at the Howrah hospital on Friday. The hospital encouraged people to pledge their organs. Organizations, like Bengal Organ Donation Society and Manav Jyot, also travelled to the interiors of Champahati to create awareness.
