One organ that makes us to be visually not scaring is the Skin. It was in 2004 when my skin got burnt in the fire accident, I realised how awful we may look with skin covering our body. Looking at the flesh, blood and veins was not only painful and unimaginable, when the skin damage cannot be repaired with natural regenerative process due to burns and accidents.
In many instances, the lack of timely skin donation can endanger lives. Unfortunately, many skins burn accidents happen while cooking, gas cylinder bursts and lamps in kitchens and pooja rooms. Also, many accidents happen during festivals and burning crackers, chemical reactions and accidents in industries and in road accidents. In many acid attacks this can be much more painful and unimaginable.
Just like how we have blood banks, we also have many skin banks attached to government hospitals burn wards and doctors use the skin donated to do the plastic surgery and reconstruction micro-surgeries to bring back many devasted lives back to some relief.
However, due to lack of awareness and understanding that skin also can be donated like any other organ by deceased is what is making this a rare donation. Many people can get timely help and treatment if more people donate skin after their death.
In my case, it took my skin almost 90 days to start regenerating after the burnt skin has been scrapped and taken off from my thigh and right hand and this period was not only depressing and awful, but it was deeply physical pain and emotionally very traumatic. That is the time, I first heard about skin donation.
Skin donation is not only important organ donation, but it is a life saver of physical and emotional pain to many. Anyone above 18 years can donate the skin just like donating eyes soon after death and can be pre-registered as donor with skin banks or as part of their organ donation registration. Kith and Kin of the deceased can take steps to inform the concerned medical facility soon after the demise of the donor and complete this wish. It is very thin layer of epidermis 0.3 mm thickness of sick that is taken for harvesting and some part of inner dermis to a very minimum extent.
Just like the eye donation, skin also need to be donated within six hours from the time of the death of the person and also it will not disturb how the deceased will look as generally, the skin is only
taken from thighs, legs or back and do not cause disfiguring or bleeding and the areas where skin is removed to cleaned and covered with proper bandages to avoid any fluids coming out.
It is also not required that the skin need to be transplanted or used immediately, but the skin banks can store the skin for long years, and this gives burn ward surgeons and plastic surgeons to use the skin based on the requirements.
One other advantage of this process is that there is no matching requirement of blood or tissue for the recipient and any healthy skin can be put to use appropriately. Only thing to be considered before the deceased person skin is agreed to be donated is that the person was not suffering from any infectious diseases as critical as AIDS, Skin cancers and transmittable diseases.
However, people suffering with lifestyle diseases like diabetes or hypertension can donate the skin. People with tattoos or piercing can also do this donation. And also during the trauma of death, the family do not need to struggle in moving the deceased to the hospital or skin bank for this process, but can inform the nearest facility whose retrieval team will come to the place of the deceased and do the needful.
I learnt about this in a hard way and after that incident, I have registered with Mohan Foundation in Chennai for Organ donation and eye donation with Shankar Netralaya. If we could all do this when we are hail and healthy and inform our kith and kin and prepare them mentally to fulfil our wish when we are gone, it will be lifesaver too for few around us. The world can be a better place if we can convert our traumatic situations also to help someone in need and then see that our loved one’s continuing to live in others even after they are gone. The least we can do to our fellow human being. May this awareness continue, and many donors register and come forward and make this a momentum that needs larger reach and result in impacting lives around us!
Thank you
