Chandigarh: Donor-recipient couple spreads awareness

Having benefited from organ donation and realising the importance of awareness in this domain, the middle-aged couple has decided to dedicate their lives to this noble cause. On April 21, this year, Parveen and Roopa took part in the Living Donor Rally at The Bean, Chicago, being the sole representatives from India that was registered in the Guinness World Records by gathering 438 donors at one place.

Roopa, a teacher at a Government High School in Sector 38B, engages students in conversations about organ donation. The primary motive behind organising the programme was to enourage people to pledge their organs. “Our basic desire is to bust myths about organ donation. My son, who was born hale and hearty after my successful liver transplant, is a living testimony to how organ donation does no harm to the body,” said Rattan, a senior accounts officer in the Engineering Department, UT Administration.

Rattan and his wife Roopa pursued PGDMC from Panjab University with the aim to foster awareness by conducting sessions in all ROTTO-registered states. In association with another organ donation activist Ram Parkash Pal from Phagwara, Rattan created a Facebook Community under the name, Indian Association of Organ and Tissue Donors, a week back, which has been joined by more than a thousand people from across the country.

The programme involved a documentary screening, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Neeraj Kabi, strongly emphasising the legal and procedural methods followed for organ donation, besides striking an emotional chord. “Around 2,50,000 patients are on the waiting list for organ transplant in India that has a mere .05 per cent of organ donating population. Of the 1,40,000 cases of brain-dead accidents in India every year, even if 20 per cent of the people pledge their organs, eight lives can be saved from one death case,” cited Nilakshi, Transplant Coordinator at PGIMER. The great prospect of one person capable of saving up to eight lives by way of donating kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, intestines, cornea and skin is self-palpitating! PGIMER has successfully catered to 45 cases of organ donation in 2017 and already registered 20 for the current year.

“We organise student engagement programmes and help people register the fact that neither do bodies get disfigured after transplant nor does it impose financial burden on the donor,” said Karanjot, Transplant Coordinator at PGIMER.

A structural presentation by the resource team from PGIMER was made to educate the audience about which organs to donate, the procedure and matching of the organs of the donor and recipient.

The programme culminated with the distribution of pledge cards by PGIMER to register donors keen on dedicating their lives for a humane deed. The event was also graced by Councillor Hardeep Singh Buterala, who narrated a personal anecdote on the significance of organ donation.