Muslims must learn from Hindus to donate organs: MoS Baghel 

| Updated: 25 September, 2023 8:25 pm IST

NEW DELHI: Minister of State (MoS) for Health S P Singh Baghel has appealed to the Muslim community to start donating organs to save and protect the life of others on humanitarian grounds, even if it means circumventing the popular belief that such an act is prohibited in some faiths.

“Muslims don’t believe in the reincarnation theory while Hindus do. But it’s Hindus who are donating the organs on such a large scale for the welfare of society. So, I have told many among them to start donating organs to save lives,” Baghel said.

READ MORE: New health campaign to mark PM Modi’s birthday

The minister made the comment while urging people to shed away their taboos of not donating organs while addressing the media during a briefing on ‘Ayushman Bhava’ campaign on Monday.

Several Muslims in India and elsewhere in the world don’t practice donation of organs while saying it’s considered haram (prohibited) under Islam.

While talking to The New Indian, the minister later also disclosed how National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) & State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (SOTTO), government organizations that are responsible for organ donations, have been revamped during the last 9 years of Modi government.

He said, “PM Modi spoke about organ donation in the 99th episode of ‘Mann ki Baat’. I also draw my inspiration from there,”

The minister also called the ‘Ayushman Bhava’ campaign a ‘success’ citing figures of the work done under the campaign that started on the birthday of PM Modi on September 13.

“It is 100% successful and it is on record. You can look at the various figures.”

The minister claimed that more than 8,000 people have taken a pledge to donate their organs to save the life of others on the first day of the campaign in an event inaugurated by President Draupadi Murmu in Gandhinagar.

Baghel also recommended everyone to stop using the word ‘Netrdan’ (eye donation) as it mongers fear among the general public. He said that people think that their whole eye will be taken out while in reality it is just the cornea that the doctors use. 

He urged “Don’t say ‘netrdan’, instead use ‘corneadan’.” 

He stressed upon the importance of shedding fear about donating blood and shared that ‘in 6,000 camps organized under the campaign 60,000 people donated blood.”

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