At first sight, Father Davis Chiramel looks like your average man of the cloth, white cassock et al. But as he began narrating his story before a roomful of nursing students and doctors at the Madras Medical Mission days before World Kidney Day (March 14), that impression melted away. Chiramel is the moving force behind the Kidney Federation of India, which has collected lakhs of kidney pledge forms with patient details.
Chiramel was delivering the first Lakshmi Venkataraman Endowment Oration, organised by the TANKER Foundation, on Monday. During his speech, Chiramel drove home a strong message - donating one of your kidneys doesn’t really make you less healthier or increase your chances of having kidney failure. “All it does is save a life and create a legacy for you,” he emphasised. And for a change, Chiramel is someone who walked the talk when he donated his kidney to a patient three years ago. “Even if I die now, there is a piece of me living at this moment, in Kerala,” he recalled with a smile. “I did not know him, but I knew that he needed it,” he added.
Ordained a priest in 1988 and having served in several churches over two decades, Chiramel started his kidney-targeted service three years ago. “It took me only four weeks after I donated my kidney to get back on my feet and start campaigning for kidney donation,” he added. Besides helping people find a donor, the foundation had a bigger function - counselling families to have their loved ones donate their kidneys or give up their cadaver organs, in case of brain death. As he wound up his tale, earning a rare standing ovation from the gathering, the priest had this to say: “It’s all about accountability. If I can do this, so can each one of you.”