Donate Blood during Life-time and donate eyes and heart after death

During our life-time we can make many donations in money and materials to people who are in need.

One more donation we can make during our life-time is “Blood Donation” and we can make some more donations even after our death and they are “Body parts Donations”.

Ms.Abhirami, a nine years old girl, daughter of a Karnataka Industrialist Mr.Sekar was transplanted with heart donated by a student Idhayendran who died in a road accident, in September 2008 at Frontier Life-line Hospital Chennai and the girl lived for one year.

However,Abhirami died on 12th September 2009 due to heart failure. The parents of Ms.Abhirami have now donated the eyes of the girl to Egmore Eye Hospital.

Though the girl Abhirami the recipient of heart transplant died in one year, normally heart transplanted persons will live for a period from five to ten years.

The above incidents are eye-openers to the public who are mostly unaware of such body part donations and to medical personnel who are doing a noble service to enable saving of lives of persons who may die in critical situations.

The Central Government of India passed an ordinance in the year and the President of India had approved the same on 8th July 1994. According to the ordinance:-

• Persons above 18 years can donate parts of body
• The person willing to make parts donations must give the willing to do so in writing
• Two persons must witness the above donation letter
• One of the witnesses must be a close relative of the donor
• For persons below 18 years the parents must give their willingness for the donation in writing
• The donors must not have diseases such as TB, Cancer and HIV etc.

In order to prevent commercialization of the noble body parts donations, the Government has fixed stern punishments including rigorous imprisonment of five years with a fine of Rupees Ten Thousand.

However, some selfish people are making money out of body parts donations, especially in kidney donations.

Awareness on body parts donations, especially, eyes donation and heart donations must be created by Indian media, because as compared to other countries body parts donations are not popular in India, due to various religious and social reasons.

We can donate blood during our life-time and donate the parts of body, such as eyes and heart after our death. Such donations will help some persons to prolong their lives.