Around twenty doctors took part in the heart transplant held in the early hours of 6th July, Friday at NIIMS hospital, Hyderabad. They transplanted the heart of a young 35 year old road traffic accident on another 29 year old a farmer from the west coast of Andhra state.The recipient is recovering well.

Two kidney transplants and one liver transplant were also done in different hospitals on the same day using the young victim’s organs. With the increasing number of people willing to donate their organs and registering on organ donation registry, there would be many more patients benefiting in future from the slowly bulging organ donor pool.

India is making a slow but definite progress in performing more number of organ transplantations using organs from donors after death. The media should play an active role in increasing the awareness among general public about the long lasting benefits of donating organs after death to the unfortunate recipients waiting for organs for many years because of the lack of recipients.

Some of the Western European nations like Great Britain are proposing amendments to their existing policies regarding organ donation after death. The new policy will enable the person’s organs automatically being considered for organ donation unless the person voluntarily opts out of the organ donor pool. This means the health professionals involved in the organ retrieval process will have to look at the register containing the names of people who opted out of the organ donor pool.

India and its Asian neighbours should encourage their citizens to step forward to register for organ donor pool. The health department should bring both the public health organisations and private hospitals to work together in recognising the potential donors and performing the transplants succesfully in order to benefit more number of recipients in need of donors.