Honoured for gift of life after death

CHENNAI: When P Shantha Lakshmi received a letter from a city hospital commending her for donating her brain dead husband’s corneas six months after his death, it finally struck her that his eyes still saw the world as he did when he was alive.
When Shantha signed on the dotted line to donate Prabakaran’s organs, she did because, when he was alive, he always helped others.
Shantha was one of the many family members of donors who on Friday shared their stories at ‘Organ Donation Awareness Programme — Saluting the Donors’.
“I am glad I decided to donate all his organs,” Shantha said at an event by Apollo Hospitals. “My husband is now living through many others.”
Health minister C Vijaya Baskar said Tamil Nadu performs more cadaver transplants than any other state and has harvested 4,992 organs from 895 donors so far.
The government said people can pledge their organs on www.transtan.tn.gov.in and receive an acknowledgment that states that you wish to be a donor in the event that you fall terminally ill and your vital organs are healthy enough to be transplanted.
“You can carry [the acknowledgment] with you so, in case of an accident, doctors will know you are willing to donate your organs,” the minister said. But the harvesting of organs will still require approval from the donors’ family members.
Other city hospitals — including SIMS Hospital — in also organised events to honour the families of organ donors. “These families are inspirational. More people are dying every day due to end-stage heart, lung, kidney and liver diseases. Organ transplant is one way of saving these lives,” SIMS Hospital VP (medical) Dr Raju Sivasamy said.