Hyderabad Sunrisers team joins hands with Apollo Health city, Hyderabad to raise awareness on Organ Donation

For many Like 6-year-old T Siddharth, who underwent a liver transplant it was a morning to remember when the members of Sunrisers Hyderabad team came to Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad as a part of the joint programme of Apollo Hospitals and Jeevandan to create awareness about Organ Donation. Spin legend, Muthiah Muralitharan, Kiwi captain, Kane Williamson, Fast Bowler, Md. Siraj and Ben Cutting were present.

The campaign was aimed at sensitising the need to donate organs and give a fresh lease of life to terminally ill patients. “Every year 5 lakh patients die due to non-availability of organs in India, 2 lakh perish because of liver diseases and about 1.5 lakh await kidney transplant” said Dr. Manish Verma. Donation after death is one of the effective ways to address this major issue as it can provide all organs for transplantation in addition to safeguarding concerns about liver donor safety” Dr. Verma explained.

Ms. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals said “Organ donation is like gifting life to a needy patient. The welcome feature is the facilitatory role of the government bodies and the efforts of NGOs in increasing the percentage of organ donation in the recent past. But still, lots more needs to be done”.

“Apollo Transplant Institute offers a host of state of the art services including peritoneal and hemo-dialysis, management of liver, kidney diseases and also heart and lung transplants. The reason we involved cricketers is because in our country, they along with film stars are the most popular and provide the best platform to take the message to the masses” Ms. Sangita pointed out.

Giving the cricketers’ perspective, Williamson felt it was a touching experience for them to be involved in this initiative. “We are glad that we are useful in spreading this significant message and wish the number of donors and beneficiaries will increase” he remarked.

Ms. Swarnalatha, Chief Executive Officer of Jeevandan and Dr. Hari Prasad, President of Apollo Hospitals were among those who spoke about the importance of this campaign