Organ transplants losing steam in Kerala. Is social media to blame?

Organ transplants losing steam in Kerala. Is social media to blame?

Pathanamthitta: An official program that governs organ donation and transplantation in Kerala has hit a dead-end thanks to tightened regulations and malicious social media campaigns. Only four people agreed to donate their organs so far this year, compared to 76 donors in 2015.

As many as 7.5 lakh people in the state have given consent letters to harvest their organs after death under the Mritasanjeevani programme. More than 4,000 people die in accidents in Kerala a year on average.

The dip in the number of donors is attributed to a social media campaign that claimed that patients could spring back to life even after they had been pronounced brain dead.

The state government brought about changes to the law last year to insist on the presence of government doctors to declare a patient brain dead, even in privately run hospitals. The regulation was put in place after the government received several complaints regarding organ harvesting.

The new regulation has ensured that organs could not be harvested in some cases because a government doctor could not be found on time. The programme has also been affected by a lack of awareness among the relatives of patients, who often object to organ donation.

As many as 33 hospitals in Kerala are capable of organ transplantation. Up to 600 organ transplants are done in private hospitals across Kerala every year. Most of them are kidney transplants. As many as 1,739 patients are waiting for a kidney to save their lives, as per the requests received under the Mritasanjeevani programme. As many as 535 people are waiting for a liver and another 33 for a heart. At least three patients are in urgent requirement of a pair of lungs.

As many as 650 critically ill patients died while awaiting an organ to save them.

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