Street play to popularise organ donation in society

Bhubaneswar: The staff members of SUM Ultimate Medicare (SUMUM) to spread awareness about organ donation enacted ‘Life after Death’- a street corner play on Saturday here as part of Indian Organ Donation Day which was observed on Thursday.

Soumendra Priyadarshi, commissioner of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Police Commissionerate, who inaugurated the play, hailed the efforts being made by SUMUM to popularise organ donation while recalling that prompt steps taken by the hospital had ensured that four other persons received a new lease of life as five organs harvested from a brain dead patient were taken out of the city to different hospitals.

The police had played an important role in the process as it created a green corridor from the hospital to the airport to facilitate quick transport of the organs, he said adding the police would always extend its cooperation in such events.

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Speaking on the occasion, Dr Swetapadma Dash, chief executive officer of the hospital, said the programme had been organised to spread awareness among the members of public about organ donation. She recalled that a patient in the hospital was declared to be brain dead on June 24 last year and the lungs, kidneys and liver were harvested after necessary consent was received from the wife of the deceased.

The State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) extended its cooperation which enabled the kidneys to be transplanted in a waiting patient at SUMUM and another at the SCB Medical College Hospital at Cuttack. The lungs were flown to Kolkata for a critical patient and lungs taken to New Delhi needed by another person.

Major (Dr) Ranjan Kumar Sahu, senior consultant at SUMUM’s department of Radio Diagnosis and Imaging, who was decorated with the ‘Iron Man’ title at Kazhakstan on July 2 was also felicitated on the occasion. Brig (Dr) Biraj Mohan Mishra, the hospital’s chief of medical services, proposed the vote of thanks.