Speaker Meeting – Sept 5th

Dr.J.Amalorpavanathan, Convenor, Tamil Nadu Cadaver Transplant Program, spoke to the members on the subject of Organ Donation.

 He cleared many myths and cleared the process of donating organs. While many people wanted to do a good deed and come forward to register and pledge their bodies for organ donation, the only organ that can truly be harvested after the death of a person is the eye. For that too, a very short window is available and even if the person has pledged to donate, the point is, given the situation and incident, will the family remember and take the action of calling the hospital to harvest the eye is a question. The other instance of donation post death is the donation of the body for study and research purposes. Bodies are needed for teaching and the only way the colleges get them is either through unclaimed bodies or full body donations. Kamal Hasan has committed to donate his body for research.

Harvesting of  organs from a dead body is possible only in a very controlled and well prepared scenario where the whole setup is kept ready to start

harvesting within the first few minutes of death. This is because the blood starts  clotting within 4 seconds of death and needs to be put through an artificial circulating system before clotting happens.

Organ donation as we know  is the harvesting of organs from brain dead patients. Here also, the brain death is the result of the brain stem not responding and it has been medically proven that  a person in coma under a brain stem injury will never recover. Thus any removal of life support is legally allowed and declaring such a patient as dead is legal, opening the way for harvesting. Another interesting fact is that in most cases families of such patients allow harvesting during their deepest moments of grief. Several instances of this were cited.

Also, given the ethics, likely misuse, and the long list of patients waiting for organs, Tamil Nadu setup the first legal framework to regulate the process of identification, harvesting and distribution of harvested organs. The TN model has been adopted across the country. No organ can today be distributed without the approval of the organization that Dr. Arul heads.

It is because of this frame work that the organization organization can approach the traffic and other authorities to seek speedy  passages and facilities for moving organs not only on the roads but also through other means.

With the above background, the drive of donor cards and registration is only a way of reaching out to people to spread awareness of organ donation and not really register and list people who are ready to donate organs.

A truly enlightening talk that cleared many concepts and myths.