webindia123 Kolkata | Tuesday, Feb 18 2014 IST
Bimal Karmakar's donation of kidneys saved two lives. After he was declared brain dead, his family agreed to give away his vital organs and this was the first such instance in Eastern India, after implementation of Cadaveric Organ Transplantation Act in India in 1994.
Though incidents of organ harvest from brain dead patients are fairly common in some parts of India, including Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Mumbai and Delhi, no one in Eastern India had come forward to do so, before the family of Karmakar.
Belle Vue Clinic, in association with the Bimal Karmakar Foundation and the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark organised a seminar today to commemorate a rare gesture, by a few unknown people.
Swami Suparnananda, Secretary, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark, while opening the seminar, reminded that the Mission is driven by the aim identified by Swami Vivekananda,
"To treat all work as worship, and service to man as service to God."
He said Cadaveric organ transplantation should be encouraged, by all means, because it helps to achieve the goal of the Mission. Prof Amit Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences, said, 'we encountered, not only the need to coordinate the different avenues of medicines, but a drastic need to change the mindset of the people.
He lamented the acute apathy to the concept of cadaveric organ transplantation among the people in Eastern India. While Southern and Western India has made some progress, and Northern India is catching up, Eastern India must do more to create the awareness about the requirement of cadaveric organ transplantation,he observed.
Dr Saurabh Kole, critical care expert, Belle Vue Clinic and convener Bimal Karmakar Foundation recalled the odds he encountered with, organizing the first cadaveric organ transplantation in Eastern India.
He praised the courage of the family of Bimal Karmakar, but for whose bold decision, we would not have started this movement in Eastern India. Dr Kole also referred to the recent comments of President Pranab Mukherjee, on organ donation which will definitely motivate the people on this issue. He also interacted with the media on the importance of cadaveric organ transplantation, answered their queries and sought their kind help to spread this movement, far and wide.