BHUBANESWAR: An estimated five lakh people die while waiting for organ transplant and only four per cent of the required 1.5 lakh kidney transplant surgeries are performed every year across the country, said experts at an event here.
Quoting a WHO report which states that India’s organ donation rate is a meagre 0.01 per cent, senior gastroenterologist Prof Manoj Kumar Sahu said around two lakh people die of liver diseases in the country because they never get a donor. At a programme organised to mark National Organ Donation Day at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, Prof Sahu said 17 people die every day due to lack of donors.
“Only around 39,000 organ transplants were conducted in 2020 against the requirement of at least 15 times,” he said. Citing that there is no age bar for organ donation, Prof Sahu urged people to come forward for the noble cause.
“A newborn baby who dies within 100 minutes of birth can donate both kidneys while the cornea of a 107-year-old woman could be harvested for use,” he said. Medical Superintendent Prof Pusparaj Samantasinhar said the recent government order allowing conduct of postmortems at night would go a long way in increasing harvest of organs.