Life, the ultimate gift

DEATH IS just a beginning of another life - a line from world philosophies. But as Dr. Sunil Shroff, Managing Trustee, MOHAN (Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network) Foundation points out, this has a scientific basis too. That is, in the organs transplanted from the dead to the living.

Speaking of Organ Donation at the first of a lecture series on socially-relevant issues organised by the Centre for Social Initiative and Management, Dr. Shroff said that the elephant- headed Ganesha of the Hindu pantheon of Gods only represented the ultimate in transplantation. The question of organ donation has got the sanction of all major religions including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism (out of 16,000 eye donations in the country, 8,000 are by the Jains) and Judaism.

While organs from a living person can include blood, bone marrow, portion of liver, lung and pancreas, following a natural death, eyes, skin and fascia, heart valves, bones and tendons, cartilage, veins, arteries and middle ear bones and on brain death, the body can be literally recycled.

In India, so far, it is blood, eyes and of late kidneys are being donated popularly, the doctor said, stressing that for eye donation, it was important to keep the eyes moist and the eyelids closed.

There are quite a few myths about brain death which takes place when blood supply to the brain stops because of tumour, intra- cerebral haemorrhage, skull fracture due to head injury in a road traffic accident. In short, Dr. Shroff said, ``When the brain is gone, the person is dead.'' Adding another bit of information, he said that graves have been dug up to find that nails and hair were growing even after years in some bodies.

There is a general lack of awareness on brain death with even doctors not knowing much on the subject. Well can miracles happen with a brain dead patient coming back to life? ``Well, I have been in this profession for 25 years and I have not seen a miracle so far,'' the doctor asserts.

Elaborating on the social and legal issues of the topic, Dr. Shroff presented statistics to show that in the country there was a need for 1,50,000 kidneys, 50,000 hearts and 1,00,000 livers. The rate of supply is far less. Taking the message of awareness through the media, he quotes a poet's words, ``Don't take your organs to heaven for heaven knows they need it here.''

By Akila Dinakar

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