THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ever since public awareness blew up, phones at the office of Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (K-SOTTO) have been ringing relentlessly, with callers offering up their own kidneys for cash or reporting “suspiciously still” neighbours as organ donors!
To handle the chaos, K-SOTTO, the state agency coordinating organ donations and transplants, recently launched a toll-free hotline (1800-425-0048). The aim: to sort out real transplant emergencies and legal questions while politely turning away amateur black-market sellers.
The round-the-clock service highlights a massive, unaddressed demand for immediate information generated by repeated public campaigns. Previously, critical communication channels remained partially blocked, leaving patients, families and doctors stranded without instant answers during life-or-death emergencies.
According to the agency’s officials, they are flooded with calls daily, from distressed citizens offering to sell a kidney to pay off debts, or frantic families seeking help for cornea donation within hours of a death.
There are also neighbours who call the office to alert K-SOTTO about “suspected” brain deaths in their locality and individuals appealing district authorisation committee decisions. The six K-SOTTO coordinators working in shifts also routinely handle calls from financially-distressed citizens offering to sell organs.
According to the officials, routing all queries directly to the K-SOTTO office during regular working hours fundamentally failed to meet the 24x7 reality of organ transplantation.
“The new toll-free helpline will serve as a round-the-clock, single-window facility for the public, doctors, and hospitals to access verified details on organ transplantation instantly,” emphasised Dr Noble Gracious, executive director, K-SOTTO.
Most enquiries for cornea donations
A major chunk of daily enquiries involves cornea donations, where retrieval must happen within a strict 4-8-hour window after death. While many families are willing to donate, they often do not know where to register or whether to approach local hospitals immediately. This confusion extends to healthcare providers, too. Non-transplant hospitals often lack clarity on necessary steps when a grieving family consents to donation. Similarly, dialysis patients frequently call K-SOTTO for transplant guidance as their treating non-transplant physicians fail to suggest or recommend transplantation options.
