The Jeevan Daan Abhiyan on Sunday submitted as many as 360 pledge forms (affidavits), through which equal number of volunteers promised to donate organs and body after death, to the Department of Anatomy of the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
This is the first such occasion in the country when such a large number of pledge forms for donation of organs and body post death were submitted to a medical college on a single day, claimed Abhiyan secretary Debendra Sutar.
“Every year, around 5 lakh people in our country lose their lives for want of organs. Be it for organ transplantation or medical education and research, it is always difficult to get a donor at the appropriate moment,” said Sutar.
He said there are approximately 30 lakh people in our country who have gone blind due to various corneal diseases. Every year around 20 thousand people join the fleet of blind people because of cornea related diseases. “We can make these people see if we pledge to donate our eyes after deaths,” he said.
With the advancement of medical sciences and infrastructure development, large number of people suffering from kidney diseases, cardiac problems could get a new lease of life with better availability of such organs from the donors, he added.
President Pradip Kumar Sinha, Khirode Rout, Bhikari Charan Das, Shyam Sundar Sahoo, Ramesh Ali Besant, Gadadhar Sahoo, Kunja Bihari Panda, Niranjan Behera, Debananda Dalabehera, Bhagirathi Sethi and Saroj Kumar Senapati met Anatomy HoD Prof Dr Chinmayee Mohapatra and handed over the pledge forms.
Prof Rajashree Biswal, Dr Madhusmita Panda, Dr Satya Ray, Dr Santosh Sahoo, Dr DN Mishra were also present.