New Delhi: As part of India’s campaign to promote organ donation, the Union Health Ministry has drafted a curriculum titled “Organ Donation” to sensitize school students on the issue.
The draft curriculum has been sent for expert review by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) from the Ministry of Health.
After getting the nod, the health ministry will ask the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to include a chapter on organ donation in textbooks for senior school students.
Despite being home to the world’s largest population, India has one of the lowest organ donations due to stigma and lack of awareness, among other reasons.
“We have prepared a draft chapter on organ donation and transplantation for school and medical students respectively. Right now our organ transplant experts are reviewing the chapters to see what kind of information to give to school students. Basically, it will be for senior school students. The ministry will inform NCERT to include this chapter once the draft is finalised.”
Queries sent to health ministry spokespersons did not elicit any response.
“The ministry is taking several steps to expedite organ donation by providing information, tele-counseling and helping in coordination for organ donation. Boards on organ donation are displayed outside ICUs and at strategic locations in transplant/recovery hospitals,” said the official cited above.
The move comes in the backdrop of the government’s “one nation one organ donation policy” which will be implemented across India.
The government has decided to do away with the domicile requirement of the state for registration of patients requiring organ transplant from deceased donors.
Also, as per the new government guidelines, the upper age limit of 65 years has been removed for eligibility to register to receive a deceased donor organ. Now, a person of any age can register to receive a deceased donor organ.
As per the data available from NOTTO, a total of 15,561 organ transplants took place in 2022.
Hundreds of thousands of patients languish on waiting lists for life-saving organ transplants at top hospitals every year amid acute shortage of donors, doctors say.
As of last month, according to NOTTO there were a total of 4,49,760 organ donors registered in the country and 49,745 patients waiting for organ transplant.
Organs like heart, kidney, eyes, pancreas, lungs and liver of a brain dead person can save at least seven lives and at any given time around 10 patients are sent to intensive care units as brain dead in the metro city .
In India, about 50,000 people require heart transplants each year, another 200,000 kidneys, and 100,000 each liver and eye transplants. But the supply is far less than the demand.
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