Editorial . . . . . . . . 

Each year, organ donation and transplantation provide thousands of Indians a second chance at life. However, due to a severe imbalance between the number of organs donated and the number of persons waiting for a transplant, thousands of Indians pass away every year while waiting for an organ donation. The biggest problem in India is finding an organ donor. The organ donation and transplantation situation in India is impacted by inadequate infrastructure, administrative challenges, a lack of a centralised registry for organ donation, a lack of public awareness, people’s conservative mindsets, and numerous fallacies surrounding organ donation. Organ transplantation is currently being done in India either from related or unrelated donors. Currently, the majority of transplants between unrelated individuals are carried out with an authorization committee’s approval. Currently, kidney transplants are carried out in more than 100 transplant centres throughout India. In India, there are very few transplant centres that perform liver transplants, however, several conducts rare heart transplant. In the last 50 years, the growth of organ transplantation has seen the commercialization of organ donation become a crucial component of the programme. Organ trade is a rapid way for some people to get rich and a relief for others because of the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the need for human organs, and the accessibility of technology in the nation. The organ trade invariably results in the exploitation of the poor by luring them with financial rewards to satisfy their short-term, urgent financial requirements. Making organs a commodity risks undermining social, moral, and ethical norms and cannot be a viable alternative to address the demand for organs in a civilised society. In order to prevent unrelated transplants and make deceased organ donations legal while accepting brain death, the Indian government created the Transplantation of Human Organ Act in 1994. The process of donating an organ or a portion of an organ at the time of the donor’s death for the goal of transplantation to a needy individual is known as deceased organ donation. In India, the idea of brain death has never been supported or publicly popularised. As a result, it is difficult to certify brain deaths in India because the majority of Indians are unaware of what constitutes brain death. As a result, it is challenging to persuade Indian patients’ families to donate their deceased loved ones’ organs. India still has an extremely low rate of cadaveric organ donation, also known as deceased brain death organ donation. India has just 0.8 deceased organ donors per million people, compared to Spain’s 43.9 deceased organ donors per million and the US’s 30.9 deceased organ donors per million. In the event of brain death, vital organs like the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, and intestines, as well as tissues like corneas, heart valves, skin, bones, ligaments, tendons, veins, etc., can be donated. The lack of systems in hospitals to recognise and validate brain deaths is the issue—not because Indians don’t want to give organs. Furthermore, no one gives the ability to save lives through organ donation to the loved ones of a brain-dead individual. Due to the large incidence of fatal traffic accidents, India has a sizable pool of potential donors for deceased organs that have not yet been utilised. Brain death accounts for about 4–6% of all hospital deaths. Road accidents kill about 1.4 lakh people in India every year. After brain death, a living individual might want to donate an organ. Making your contribution preferences known begins with signing a donor card. A donor card is an indication of one’s readiness to donate; it is not a legal document. While indicating one’s desire to give organs after death by signing a donor card, it’s crucial to inform one’s family or friends of the decision. This is because permission for the contribution will be sought from family members. When they provide their consent, the choice is deemed to be final. This would increase the supply of organs that are compatible.

Only by methodically expanding the dead organ donation programme it is possible to close the gap between organ supply and demand in India, which is getting wider by the day along with the building of suitable infrastructure, educating and training  ICU and emergency personnel, registering hospitals as organ retrieval and transplantation facilities, better reporting of cases of brain death, and most crucially, public awareness campaigns. SOTTO J&K’s effort certainly needs every appreciation in this regard.