Date:27/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/27/stories/2008042759620400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Transplant beneficiary sets an example

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI: The biggest lesson at the end of the day for Prasad Rao Garikapati is that organ donation must be encouraged.

Mr. Rao, a business man from Andhra Pradesh who underwent a liver transplant in April, is doing well enough to think of donating his organs; in fact, every organ that may be of use to others.

His donor, whom Mr. Rao deifies, was a 38-year-old who was declared brain-dead after a road accident.

The donor’s family was counselled by grief counsellors at Apollo Hospitals to allow doctors to harvest the organs.

Thanks to this gesture, Mr. Rao feels much better than he was, and is now appealing to the public to donate organs, attempting to lead by example.

“In India, we have a huge prevalence of liver diseases due to Hepatitis B and C and alcoholism,” says Anand K. Khakar, consultant transplant and hepatobiliary surgeon at Apollo Hospitals. The need for donor livers is huge. Since the liver is a self-regenerating organ, even part of living donors’ liver can be used for transplantation.

While there are many reasons for the unwillingness of families to allow the organs of their deceased kin to be harvested, creating awareness of the need for organ donation is necessary, doctors suggest.

In the last two months, cadaver-based donation has resulted in three liver transplants, six kidney transplants and eight corneal transplants at Apollo Hospitals. “Noble acts of families of the deceased give a new lease of life to patients with end-stage organ failure,” says Prathap C. Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals.