Befitting response from 'unwanted' parents
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: October 03, 2022 -

WHILE it's still very rare to hear someone offering his/her body to medical institutions or pledging to donate their vital organs to others who are facing imminent death in case they do not undergo organ transplantation, the 12 elderly citizens, including 10 staying in an old age home and a couple running the facility making it public to donate their bodies to JNIMS is indeed one of the noblest deeds for humanity as well as for advancement of medical science.

Regardless of occasional pledges to offer bodies so as to enable medical students and professionals undertake deeper studies and help prevent various diseases, the fact remains that Manipur has poor number of body and organ donors.

Donation of bodies to medical institutions so that their organs could be useful to others is unarguably one of the most humane gestures.

As per the standard medical ethics, human organs gifted by charitable people are normally removed before the life support systems are turned off as useful healthy organs have to be harvested when the body is still alive.

Across the world this medical procedure is something that the medical fraternity encouraging organ donation does not like to disclose till the late moment but it is a fact every family of a donor ultimately discovers.

However, there is a bitter-sweet tale in the latest case of donation pledges made by chairman of Langol Old Age Home along with his wife and 10 destitute residents of the home to offer their bodies to JNIMS on Saturday.

Significance of the pledges by the 12 senior citizens is that they volunteered to become research materials on the same day the International Day of the Older Persons was observed and dignitaries present at these events delivered contemptuous speeches over notable increase in the number of aged parents being considered unworthy by their very own progenies.

Though it is possible that some ofthe elderly people might have opted to stay at the home owing to financial issues, the chairman recounting that children of one of the inmates refusing to even claim their parent's corpse for religious ritual implies presence of inconsiderate and pathetic people in our society.

Nevertheless, by appending their signatures on relevant documents including declarations/affidavits to offer their bodies to JNIMS director Prof L Deben, the Langol Old Age Home inmates' noble insight must have prodded the conscience of those children who see their aged parents as financial burden or obstacles in achieving their professional goals.

In western societies where children usually move out of their parental home after marriage, tales of senior citizens preferring to mingle with their peers at retirement homes till their final hours are quite common but in Manipur's context where joint family is still the norm, it is dispiriting whenever there are reports of ill-treatment of parents.

Financial constraints consequently forcing the parents to seek the comfort of shelter homes is understandable and their decision can't be blamed on the children but when well-to-do families abandon their parents, who had sacrificed their entire life for them, then it is both outrageous and unpardonable.