Updated: 12-05-2025
An Ultimate Guide on Organ Donation
The process of donating an organ or its part for transplanting it into another person is known as organ donation.
The organ must be alive at the time of transplantation.
It means the oxygen and blood must flow through the organ when the organ is being removed.
The organ has to be in viable condition at the time of recovery.
For this, it is necessary that the person must die due to circumstances causing irreparable neurological injury.
The cause of an injury can be massive trauma to the brain area due to an automobile accident, stroke or aneurysm.
The donation becomes possible only when all attempts to save the patient fail to work and there is no activity in the brain or brainstem.
Only when the brain is declared dead are the organs or body tissues removed.
A donor is a person who gives the organ, whereas the one who receives it is known as a recipient.
Who Can Become a Donor?
Anyone can become a donor irrespective of caste, religion, age, past or current medical condition, or community.
Children can also donate an organ, but they need to get permission from their parents.
People suffering from active HIV, active cancer, or taking intravenous drugs regularly are not allowed to donate organs.
Patients with hepatitis C can donate an organ to a hepatitis C patient, and the same holds true in the case of hepatitis B.
However, such cases rarely get approval. Cancer patients can donate corneas depending on the condition of the eye.
Organs That Can Be Donated
You can donate both organs and tissues; however, different health conditions influence the donation activity.
Vital organs such as the intestines, kidneys, liver, heart, pancreas, and lungs can be donated after the brain has been declared dead.
On the other hand, tissues such as heart valves, skin, corneas, bones, etc., can be donated only if the death occurs naturally.
Donation of an organ is carried out with
- A living donor who can donate a portion of the lung, liver, intestine, pancreas, or a kidney
- A deceased donor who can donate heart, intestinal organs, lungs, liver, and kidneys
Organ Donation for Patients with Organ Failure
A recipient, in this case, is a person whose one of the vital organs has lost its ability to function.
That is why a transplant means nothing short of a second chance at life for him.
Most of the time, the transplant helps the recipient get back to their normal lifestyle for life.
A tissue or a cornea transplant offers the ability to recover from a certain pain or disability, such as vision loss or osteoporosis.
Organ Donation Helps Families of the Deceased to Recover from Loss
Organ donation is a great human act that helps the families of the deceased recover from the loss.
The donation helps to improve the life of the recipient.
Thus, the act gives huge comfort to the family members of the donor.
