Organ donation: Experts rope in schools to catch them young
Times of India | 10 August 2024
Kolkata: In an aim to boost deceased organ donation, ROTTO, East (Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation) will now foray into schools. Officials said that making the children aware at a young age will help in spreading the message of organ donation and prompt them in becoming future organ donors.
On Friday, ROTTO (East) had roped in teachers and students of three Kolkata schools to be a part of the felicitation programme of around 18 deceased donor families at IPGMER (SSKM).Representatives of Mitra Institute, Gokhale Memorial School and Tirthapati Institute were present among the five schools that will be working with ROTTO, East.
“We believe informing children about organ donation will help in sending the message of deceased organ donation across. If we can educate them about organ donation and how it helps people, they will understand why this cause is important. We have approached five schools to tie-up as a pilot project before we expand to other schools – both govt and private schools,” said ROTTO, east director Manimoy Banerjee.
Despite lagging behind southern states and some western states, Bengal logged deceased 16 donations in 2023, the best ever since the first deceased organ donation in the state way back in 2010, seven from IPGMER alone. This year the count is 11, with the last one being on July 31.
“We need to popularise the concept of brain death so that we have more donations. This has to come from both private and public hospitals. One issue that often crops up is the cost of maintaining a brain dead patient so that the organs remain viable,” said principal health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam who was at IPGMER on Friday.
“I registered myself for liver transplant with ROTTO in 2019 and I finally got the organ in 2021 and underwent the transplant at IPGMER. Today I am alive because of the donor whose family donated her organs,” said Shiblal Ghosh, a recipient.
Gopal Das, who completed 101 days post lung transplant at IPGMER and a heart recipient, who had undergone the transplant in 2018 at RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, were also present during the meet at SSKM. ROTTO also felicitated eight traffic sergeants of Kolkata Police as cops play an important role by creating a green corridor in transporting organs from the donor hospital to a recipient hospital.