After a period of hiatus, the practice of donating full bodies for research and study purpose has once again picked up momentum in Tiruchi.
The awareness of donating entire bodies of dead persons was very poor when the Department of Anatomy was established in 1997 at the K.A.P. Viswanatham Government Medical College. Only a handful of persons came forward to register their willingness to donate their bodies after their death. The college had to depend upon Stanley Medical College or Madras Medical College in Chennai for the dead bodies for taking classes for the medical students.
However, the hospital, the second Government medical college set up after the Thanjavur Medical College in central districts of the State, slowly began to receive registration from persons volunteering. The period between 2017 and 2018 saw the maximum registration with 30 persons expressed their willingness to donate their bodies after their death.
But, the medical college suspended the registration as well as receiving dead bodies for almost two years since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020. It resumed registrations from the later part of 2021.
According to sources, there has been a sharp increase in registration after the break for about two years. A total of 21 persons registered for body donation in 2021 alone. It is 17 during the current year so far. Since the start of the college, about 500 persons have registered for full body donation. The Department of Anatomy has so far received 15 bodies from the list of full body donation.
“The number is highly encouraging. More and more people have come forward to donate the bodies for research and study,” says D. Nehru, Dean of the college.
Though advance registration is required for handing over the dead bodies to the anatomy department, there are people, who straight away bring the bodies of their dear ones, as per their wish hours or days before their death.
V. Anandhi, Head, Department of Anatomy, said that the college had about 10 bodies, which had been preserved by the embalming method. Some of them would be sent to the newly started medical colleges for the study purposes.
T. Elangovan, Lab Technician, who handles the section, said that most of the donors were from K.K. Nagar, Kailash Nagar, Lalgudi and Srirangam in the Tiruchi district. Besides the hardcore atheists, who did not believe in religion and rituals, some old age people, whose children were settled in the United States of America and England, generally had come forward to donate their bodies after their death.
Published - November 30, 2022 07:28 pm IST
