Having chosen the profession of saving lives, undergraduate medical students at the country’s premier All-India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) on Saturday took their commitment to work for the welfare of humankind a step further by pledging their organs.
Hundred-odd students at the institute took a solemn oath to donate their organs in a ceremony organised at the AIIMS auditorium by the institute’s Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO) unit.
“The institute’s ORBO is the country’s nodal unit for the organ donation and was set up with the purpose of encouraging donations, fair and equitable distribution and optimum utilisation of human organs,’’ said a senior AIIMS official.
The unit maintains a waiting list of terminally ill patients requiring transplants, donor registration, matching of recipients with donor, co-ordination from procurement of organs to transplantation, dissemination of information to all hospitals, organisations and individuals concerned, creating awareness, promotion of organ donation and transplantation activities.
Giving details about the pledges, an AIIMS official said: “The youngsters came forward for this noble act as part of their social responsibility. The oath taking was followed by screening of a short informative film on organ donation to dispel social and religious myths associated with it.”
Organ donation in India has been seeing poor growth despite occurrence of over one lakh brain deaths in India every year.
“We are trying to create awareness about organ donation by telling the common man that organs are harvested from brain-dead patients with utmost care and dignity by specially-trained surgeons, which does not leave the body disfigured in any way. It is also important for the prospective donor to share his decision to donate his organs with his family to make it easier for them to carry out his wish,” the official added.
