New Delhi: Organ donation and transplantion in India is under poor state of affairs. According to the data from the Ministry of Health Affairs, only 23% of organs donated are transplanted to the needy patients.
Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel said that, there is need to encourage deceased organ donation in India rather than living persons donating their organs. As per the medical sciences, “a living person can save the life of only one person but a deceased or cadaver organ donor can save up to 9 lives by donating vital organs,” said Anupriya.
The National Biomaterial Centre (National Tissue Bank) at the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) in Safdarjung Hospital was made functional. It aims to fulfil the demands of tissue transplantation including procurement, storage and fulfil distribution of biomaterials. The government is making efforts to narrow the gap between demand and supply, and quality assurance in the supply of various tissues.
Rajesh Malhotra, chairperson, Bone Bank at NOTTO and head of the orthopaedics department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, said that “For fully utilising the donated organs, we need a strong network and communication system between the hospitals, organs and tissue banks. The organ and tissue donation has been very low in India. While we already have very less number of donors, we are also not able to use the donated organs properly due to various reasons.”