India, a country of 1.3 billion, witnesses 500,000 patients dying every single year as they wait for an organ donation. Due to a low awareness about organ transplants, only a handful of donors cater to India’s ever-increasing demand. A single cadaver donor alone can save up to 9 lives! And yet, hospitals still note that the average waiting time for a patient is anything between 6 months to 8 years? If a handful of donors can save a larger group of patients, why are the statistics so terrible?
In India, there are tens of millions of cases reported in a single year, of diseases like liver cirrhosis, end stage cancer and many other conditions that require transplants. Given that, only 5,000 kidneys, 500 bone marrows, 1,000 livers and a staggeringly low 15 hearts are transplanted. The high costs of transplantation sends Indian patients to crowdfunding India platforms like Impact Guru.
Let’s curb the ignorance around organ transplants and learn the facts!
- There are two kinds of organ donors: living and deceased or cadaver donors.
- A heart and lung donor should be no older than 50, while a cornea and skin donor can be up to 100.
- In India, buying or selling an organ is a criminal offense.
- Spain has 36 donors per 1 million patients, while India has 0.5.
- Tamil Nadu tops the list of states with the highest number of transplants while Delhi sits at the bottom.
Why don’t Indians donate?
Little to no awareness is the major reason behind India’s shocking statistics in organ transplantation, followed by the lack of organ retrieval centres around the country. Myths around religious restrictions pose the third obstacle. It’s not that nothing is being done. In the last five years alone, India’s cadaveric organ donation numbers increased by five times! The problem is that, the numbers are so poor that it could take decades to improve the situation by a decent margin.
Even if a patient finally manages to find an organ donor in time, their problems still don’t end there! According to WHO, as many as 49 million Indians are pushed into the clutches of poverty every year. A transplant procedure (preceded by preparatory procedures like dialysis or chemotherapy, and followed by post-operative care) at a quality healthcare facility can cost anything between Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.
Medical crowdfunding India websites cater to an increasing number of organ transplant patients every year. Though the concept came to the Indian scenario only a few years ago, patients have realized the convenience of creating a fundraiser for free and raising funds right from home. Moreover, with crowdfunding, they can avoid the cumbersome burden of paying back loans. They can choose their own goal amount and deadline for raising the funds they need.
If you know someone in need, choose crowdfunding India today!