Vice-President M.Venkaiah Naidu has called for stepping the campaign for organ donation in a big way to meet the rising number of end organ failures of kidney, liver, heart , lung and pancreas.
Addressing the 29th annual conference of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation here on Friday, Mr. Naidu pointed out that though there was a huge requirement for donated organs in the country, only a minuscule number was getting them.
Of the 85,000 liver failure patients on waiting list annually, less than 3% get the organ. Similarly, while two lakh kidney failure patients registered for organ transplantation , only 8,000 get the kidney and barely 1% get heart/lung amongst the thousands on waiting list, he added.
The Vice-President said though there was a huge leap in cadaveric organ donations in the last four to five years, the demand and supply remained hugely unmet because of low rates of organ donation at 0.8 per million population, when smaller countries like Spain and Croatia had a rate of 36 per million and 32 per million respectively.
The significant gap in the country was due to cultural beliefs, traditions and ritual practices, he said and called upon the doctors, NGOs and others to make people aware of the importance of organ donation. He also urged doctors and other health care delivery providers to focus on preventive care and making transplantation an affordable therapy for all the needy people.
Lifestyle choices
Mr. Naidu expressed concern over the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and asked the medical fraternity to educate the people on the dangers of leading sedentary lifestyle, eating junk food and excessive consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
He lauded the Union Government for launching ‘Ayushman Bharat’ scheme to provide insurance cover to 10.74 crore deprived rural families and said the Make in India programme should promote manufacturing medicines and devices in India at affordable prices. Mr. Mohammed Mahmood Ali, Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. K.L. Gupta, President of Indian Society of Organ Transplantation and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.