Organ donations
Tuesday’s awards ceremony for the families who had donated the organs of their departed loved ones so that others might live was moving and thoroughly human. Attending the event – an initiative of the National Transplant Organization – were President Costis Stephanopoulos, Archbishop Christodoulos, opposition New Democracy leader Costas Karamanlis, Health Minister Costas Stefanis and Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyianni. Yet the real «stars» of the evening were the families of the donors themselves who – despite their sorrow and despair – had found the strength to offer the vital organs of close relatives to ensure life for others. In this strange dance that scientific progress allows us to play, death gives life. We saw the tears on the faces of DIKKI Deputy Yiannis Dimaras and his wife as they relived the tragic loss of their child. Beyond their sorrow, however, we also glimpsed a sense of comfort because they had helped other anguished families to see life continue, to witness a kind of victory over death. And the president did well in appealing to the government to make every possible effort to urge citizens to become donors, with the donation of vital organs eventually becoming an obligation. And indeed, the State owes it to its people to encourage the impressive tendency among the majority of Greeks to become organ donors and to launch a national campaign to register as many new donors as possible.
