KOLKATA: It may be a coincidence that Somnath Chatterjee’s body was donated on Organ Donation Day, a movement for which the veteran parliamentarian vouched for. His body reached SSKM’s anatomy department on Monday evening, the same place where his mentor Jyoti Basu’s body was taken eight years ago and where his remains are still used for education and research. Chatterjee had pledged his body on September 8, 2002, at the age of 73.
Immediately after his body reached the hospital, a team from the plastic surgery department retrieved his skin and put it in the hospital’s skin bank. Chatterjee’s corneas, which have been donated to Priyamvada Birla Aravind Hospital, are already in the hospital’s eye bank.
“We will try to use every bit of his body — from organs to bones — for education and research, just like the way we did in case of Basu’s body,” said Dr Asis Ghoshal, anatomy head at SSKM Hospital. Apart from benefiting medical students, Chatterjee’s skin will also be used for grafting while treating burn patients.
Doctors at SSKM will embalm the body to prevent decomposition. It will then be used in dissection classes. According to anatomy professors, the dissection does not happen at one go. Once the dissection is done, the bones and organs will be preserved for study and research. “From nursing and MBBS to postgraduate students, everyone will benefit from this,” said Ghoshal.
The former
Lok Sabha speaker had pledged to donate his body at Ganadarpan — an NGO that collects pledges for body donations — when he was an MP. Speaking to
TOI, Ganadarpan chief Brojo Roy said, “I went to Delhi to meet him with another MP, Rupchand Pal. He signed the form along with his wife and said ‘You need to see that our bodies are used scientifically. You gave me the form and now the responsibility is yours."
Chatterjee had pledged his body on September 8, 2002, at the age of 73
