Telangana breaks record, tops organ donations

In 2023 (between January and December), the organ donation initiative from Telangana broke its own record that it had set last year by retrieving 728 organs from 200 deceased brain dead donors and allocating them to needy patients

Hyderabad: The Jeevandan organ donation initiative of the Telangana State, which received unimpeded support from the BRS government in the last one decade, has set new standards in organ donations and retrievals.

In 2023 (between January and December), the organ donation initiative from Telangana broke its own record that it had set last year by retrieving 728 organs from 200 deceased brain dead donors and allocating them to needy patients. While last year the total number of donor organ retrievals was 716 from 194 brain dead patients, this year, the health department collected 728 organs from 200 victims.

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In August, in terms of carrying out organ donations, Telangana emerged on top, when compared to other Indian States. To this effect, the union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), New Delhi, had adjudged Telangana as the number one Indian State for conducting the largest number of cadaver organ donation.

According to Jeevandan officials, the organ donation rate in Telangana is 5.04 per million population (PMP), which is considered to be the highest in the country. Out of the 728 organ transplants, 287 were kidneys, 173 liver, 75 lungs, 15 heart, two pancreas and 176 included corneal transplants.

“We must thank the donor families, declaration teams, intensivists, coordinators, transplant teams, hospitals police departments, forensics and many more, including the Telangana government, for the successful role in saving so many lives in 2023 by organ donation,” said in-charge, Jeevandan, Dr. G Swarnalatha.

Maintaining transparency has been the mantra in driving organ donations. The success of the Jeevandan online organ donation system and the transparent guidelines in allocating organs under the initiative have led other Indian States such as Gujarat, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha to adopt the model.

This year, the authorities launched a major push to encourage government tertiary hospitals in Telangana to start taking up brain dead declaration and conducting organ transplantation. The Jeevandan officials are collaborating with government hospitals in Nizamabad, Warangal, Mahabubnagar, OGH, and Gandhi Hospital, and conducting workshops on this issue to make doctors aware about organ donation.

Almost all the brain dead or cadaver organ donations are trauma related i.e., they are road accident cases that are treated as Medico Legal Cases (MLCs) and involves police investigation. In the last few years, Jeevandan has been collaborating with Telangana police to spread awareness among police personnel on the importance of brain dead declaration and the much needed support that they can provide while dealing with road accident cases.