SPARSH Group of Hospitals has partnered with MGM Healthcare, Chennai, a leading quaternary care super-specialty hospital in Chennai, to establish a heart and lung failure management and transplant program in Bengaluru. As a part of the initiative, SPARSH in association with MGM Healthcare will offer a comprehensive transplant program covering heart and lung transplants. An estimated 5 lakh Indians die each year waiting for organ transplants. A report by NOTTO (National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation) suggests that close to 50,000 people suffer from heart failure in India each year, yet only 10 to 15 heart transplants are undertaken annually. The deceased organ donation rate in India at less than 1 percent per million population, is a major handicap and translates to less than one person per million opting to donate their organs. Superstitions and stigma, lack of transplant coordinators, and lack of required infrastructure for certifying and maintaining brain-dead patients are the reasons behind the low donation numbers in India. Read more here..