Chennai: With just two weeks left of the year, Tamil Nadu set a new record for cadaveric organ donations, totalling 262 — the highest since the programme began in 2008, according to Transtan, the state’s registry for cadaver organs that networks with private and govt transplant centres and organ retrieval centres.
Transtan member-secretary Dr N Gopalakrishnan said that the spike in donations began after Sept 2023, when the state announced that organ donors would be accorded full state honours.
Additionally, an honour walk is conducted within the hospital, where doctors and nurses walk with the donor’s remains from the wards to the mortuary as a mark of respect. This made many families want to donate, he said.
In 2008, Transtan started with just seven donations, and in 2009 and 2010, the registry recorded 59 and 87 donations respectively. However, from 2017 onward, the numbers began to decline. The impact of Covid-19 led to a significant drop. In 2022, donations increased to 156 and to 178 in 2023.
The state has the highest utilisation of heart and lungs harvested as transplant surgeries are done in govt hospitals under the chief minister’s health insurance scheme. “The demand for organs continues to remain high. As a result, waiting list for organs such as eyes and kidneys remain long,” Dr Gopalakrishnan said.
Health minister Ma Subramanian said several states have held discussions with Transtan to make similar announcements to increase donor pools. “While we want to ensure no organ is wasted, we have started taking preventive measures to prevent non-communicable diseases,” he said.
