Gautam Gambhir pledges to donate his body parts

Ace Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir Thursday pledged to donate his body organs to a Delhi hospital after his death.

“I hereby pledge to donate my kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, small bowel, eyes, lungs and tissues after my death,” Gambir said at the launch of an organ donation website --www.giftalife.org, supported by the Apollo Transplant Institutes.

“Thousands die every year for want of organs and I feel through initiatives like ‘Gift a Life’ we can do society good by bridging the gap...I appeal to everyone to make this decision to donate their organs,” added Gambhir.

According to Anupam Sibal, senior pediatric gastroenterologist at Apollo Hospitals, there is a desperate need to create awareness about organ donation in the country, which has the lowest donation rate in the world at 0.1 per million population.

“It is now more than 15 years since the law declaring that brain dead people can donate their organs came into effect in India, yet there is limited awareness that one individual can gift lives to atleast eight patients with organ failure,” said Sibal.