Body donation is donating or gifting the body for medical research and education purposes. The donated bodies are used by the medical students and researchers to study and understand the basic
structure or anatomy of human body.

According to the Anatomy Act, 1949, hospitals and teaching medical institutions are provided with unclaimed bodies and can accept whole body donations for the purpose of anatomical examination, dissection and other similar purposes.

Body donations are highly valued and respected by the staff and students of medical colleges and hospitals. They receive cadavers from voluntary donors and unclaimed bodies provided by the
Police. These bodies are embalmed and preserved to be used to teach human anatomy and to learn life-saving surgical procedures like vascular surgeries and internal organs. Body donation will benefit the medical students in mastering human anatomy and surgical techniques that can save lives. Each cadaver is a new source of knowledge with variations, finest source of gaining knowledge, more than any text book or computer. Cadavers help in developing psychomotor skills by dissecting to medical students.

Some of the prominent personalities that have donated their bodies for medical research are Jyoti
Basu (popular communist leader and ex-chief minister of West Bengal) and Nanaji Deshmukh (Jana
Sangh leader).

Guidelines and Instructions to the Donor and Near Relatives:
1. The legal heirs or near relatives may be requested to intimate the death of the donor to the Dean / Superintendent / Resident Medical Officer.
2. The body of the said donor after death, should be transported without lapse of time
(preferably within 8-24 hours) to the concerned Govt. Medical College /Government General Hospital.
3. The said body should be accompanied by a death certificate issued by a competent authority clearly indicating the cause and time of death.
4. The body will be received on all working days from 8.30 to 3.30 pm at the Department of Anatomy. During non-working hours and holidays the body can be kept in the Mortuary of the hospital on necessary request to the Resident Medical Officer of the hospital and the same intimated to the Department at the earliest opportunity.
5. The Death should be natural and /or due to naturally occurring diseases. The body will not be accepted in cases of Medico-legal issues, suicide and poisoning. It is advised and recommended that potential donors and their relatives make alternate arrangements in case the body donation is declined by the medical college due to certain medical conditions or requirement of post-mortem or autopsy or lack of requirement, which can arise unexpectedly.

Body donation Process
Please get in touch with Government Medical Colleges or Private Medical Colleges permitted to accept voluntary whole body donations in your city and register your wish to donate whole body
after death by filling the voluntary whole body donation form. Please click on the links provided below to get see the hospitals and medical colleges permitted and sample body donation form.

NOTE: Organ Donor India is only an information website and does not accept voluntary whole body donations.

Click to see Hospitals accepting Volunteer Body Donation
Click to download Whole Body Donation Form

Need for Organ Donation

Shortage of organs is a universal problem and is more prevalent in Asian countries than the rest of the world. Organ donation rate in India is abysmally low at 0.5 per million persons.

Virtually, all the natural deaths can be converted into corneal/eye donations and corneal blindness can be driven away. More than 70% of patients succumbing to accidents are brain dead and can be potential organ donors. There are about 50,000 people dying every day in India where every organ and tissue can be harvested and transplanted but India has innumerable patients that cannot find a donor and are waiting for a second chance of life.

This shortage of/demand for organs, especially kidney, is considered to be the leading cause of organ commerce/trade in India. It is also observed that large proportion of live donors in India are women (around 70%), it is either the mother to save her son or wife to save her husband form the majority of live organ donors. Though donating organs does not affect the donor’s health, there are some incidents where donors lost their lives either during the surgery or after the surgery due to unexpected complications. Organ Donor network strives to save lives and provide comfort to the patients and families affected by organ failure and strengthen their hope through deceased organ and tissue donation.