“Coimbatore tops in organ donation in the State and according to the data from January 2015 for organ donation by brain dead persons, 34 out of the 108 persons from Coimbatore donated their organs in the past seven months, which is more than 30 per cent of the total contribution of the State,” State Convener of Cadaver Transplant Programme, Tamil Nadu, J. Amalorpavanathan, said here on Thursday.

Speaking at the programme on organ transplant implementation, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Mr. Amalorpavanathan, said, “Tamil Nadu is seven times higher than the national average in number of donors. Similarly, 135 brain dead patients donated their organs in 2014. We expect that the number will increase to around 175 to 200 in the 2015.”

Out of the average, in a month 15-18 brain dead patients donated their organs in 2015, as compared to 11 persons a month in 2014. The programme aimed to increase this to one person a day by creating awareness among the public to donate their organs.

According to the Convenor, Tamil Nadu was implementing a perfect system of organ donation and transplantation among all the states in India. This was thanks to the system drafted out by the State Government that was transparent and put a stop to all irregularities.

“About 67 per cent of the brain dead patients are between 20 and 50 years of age. Of the total, about 83 per cent is caused by head injury due to road accidents. It also reveals that about 80 per cent of the brain dead victims are men,” Mr. Amalorpavanathan said.

Talking about the State Government’s future plans in organ donation and transplantation, he said: “The goals set include implementation of organ transplantation facility at all the Government hospitals in the State, ensure adequate skin supply for burn injury surgeries, establish regional tissue bank for bone, skin, valves and heart, to set up immunology lab and to create regional data bank comprising seven states in Southern India.”

K.V. Srinivasan, Chairman of CII, Coimbatore Zone, S. Raja Sabapathy, Convener of Healthcare Panel, CII Coimbatore Zone, R.V. Ramani, Project Chairman, Organ Donation Initiative, and various experts took part in the meeting.