Teesside man urging BAME community to sign up to be organ donors
It's Organ Donation Week
A Teesside man who's recently had a kidney transplant is urging people in the BAME community to sign up to be organ donors.
The NHS says as of March 2024, there were 2,365 people from ethnic minority backgrounds still on the active waiting list, adding in the BAME community, there exists a barrier that organ donation is against their culture or religion and due to this, thousands die every year as BAME community members are unsure of donating organs after death.
73 year-old Jitu Desai from Guisborough says he wants to smash the barriers and encourage people from the BAME community and everyone else to confirm their decision, as he would not be here today if not for his kidney transplant.
He said: "I got my call at 7.20 one morning and she said she was from the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle and I woke up completely. She said 'we have a kidney match for you. Can you make your way to Freeman Hospital?' I said 'I'll be there. Do I have time for a shower?'
"First thing I did when I was properly conscious was put my hand where the kidney had been transplanted and prayed, thanked the person, thanked the family that had given me another lease of life, another way of being able to survive without having to keep on going for dialysis.
"I don't see or agree to the waste of just either getting cremated or buried and getting rid of perfectly good organs. Why not donate them? If you're a match for somebody of your kidney, you'll be definitely be a match for your heart, for your pancreas, for your lungs.
"I've got my freedom so to speak. This person who donated their kidney has given me my freedom, given me a life that I had lost technically, and it was a blessing that they did this. If I didn't have it, I would have been going to dialysis regularly until I got a kidney."
He added what he wants to do after recovery: "I could only go away for a day and a half somewhere and now, after six months, I'll be able to travel in Europe, I could go on holiday with worrying. After six months, I might be up and working again if I wanted to, I can do what I want to do."