Deh daan is the gift of the entire body after death to a medical college. Nothing is transplanted — it is given so that doctors can be taught.
Every doctor who will ever treat you learned anatomy on a body somebody donated. There is a permanent shortage of them, and the shortage is why the trust runs awareness work on deh daan and helps families through the paperwork when someone decides to give.
The trust points to the tradition this sits in: Dadhichi, who gave his bones so a weapon could be made from them; King Shivi, who offered his own body to protect a pigeon. Different communities have long returned the body to the world in different ways — some to the river, the Parsi community to the birds. Deh daan is that same instinct, directed at a medical college.
Anyone can pledge, whatever their religion, caste, gender or means, children included. Many illnesses that rule out organ donation do not rule this out — the trust names cancer, heart disease, lupus, ALS, arthritis, stroke and diabetes among them. A death requiring a post-mortem, including suicide, is not accepted afterwards, and the college has to receive the body within three days.
The same page covers the two related pledges. Organ donation needs brain death and can help as many as fifty people. Eye donation is the simplest of all: a cornea transplant reverses corneal blindness, which the World Health Organization counts among the leading causes of sight loss worldwide.
Support this seva
Three things that would help, today
Every doctor who will ever treat you learned anatomy on a body somebody donated.
Pledge
Open to anyone, of any faith or means, and many illnesses that rule out organ donation do not rule this out. The trust will help with the paperwork.
Tell your family, in plain words
A pledge is carried out by the family within three days of death. If they have not heard it from you, they will not do it.
Consider the two smaller pledges
Organ donation needs brain death and can help as many as fifty people. Eye donation is simpler still, and reverses corneal blindness.
Nothing here is paid for on this website. Every one of these starts with a phone call, because they are conversations rather than transactions — and because the trust would rather know what you are offering than take a card number.
