Some of us are familiar with organ donation while others have never heard of it. Organ donation relates to the removal of our body parts (which remain good for some hours after our death) immediately after our death on the basis of our prior consent, so as to provide a vital organ to another. Can there be greater humanitarian love - where you literally give up your body to benefit a person you never even met?
A Wealth That Grows When You Give it Away
Just as the holy scriptures advice us to have a more philosophical view of life by acknowledging that we can't take our wealth with us when we die, our organs too are no good for us the moment we die. But for another human being, who is struggling to live life because of a faulty organ, our organ means the difference between life and death. For the person who receives our organ, it means a second chance at life. Imagine, after our death, we have the ability to give a bigger gift than we ever could when we were alive.
The gift of an organ enables a blind person to see, the gift of a tissue enables a patient of Parkinson's to recover their mobility, and so on. The organs which can be donated after one's death are the heart, liver, kidneys, intestines, lungs, pancreas, besides tissues like the cornea, heart valves, skin and bones.
In India, each year, for lack of vital organs: Five lakh people die; two lakh people die of liver disease; 50,000 people die of heart disease; 150,000 people await a kidney transplant but only 5,000 get one; one crore people suffer from corneal blindness and await transplant. The bigger the tree of need, the more each leaf counts...
Donations By The Dead And The Living
Besides organ donations after death, many living people donate an organ, like a kidney, to help save another. The organs or tissues are removed in a surgical procedure (following a medical determination on its suitability for transplantation) known as allotransplantation.
We All Have Something To Give
Even if we are ill, or old, we all have the gift of life to give another. Name it the ultimate spiritual gift. The donor group, of course, does not include those with active cancer, active HIV, active infection or intravenous drug use.
by Radhika Ravi Ranjan