Gabriel Ramsey Ranasinghe, 16

School: Loyang View Secondary School

Topic: Are youths apathetic towards organ donation?

Award: Special Mention, Senior Category, 2021

In this day and age, youths are usually clouded with indifference and a lack of concern towards sensitive topics such as organ donation. They often find it difficult to allow themselves to sympathise with people around them in desperate need of assistance due to their inability to become more aware of affairs related to organ donation. As such, youths have an inadequate understanding of the significance of donating organs and how it can change the lives of thousands – many of whom are prisoners to the inescapable shackles of the illnesses eating away at their bodies.

There are a plethora of scenarios where youths are left uninformed by society about the importance of understanding and sympathising with patients undergoing organ transplants. This causes various misconceptions to arise, which may give youths the idea that organ donation is as easy as receiving a vaccination for an illness that is convenient to overcome or being assessed by a doctor for a quick medical check-up. If youths continue to fail to gain insight on the emotional toll and gruelling donation process that is part and parcel of organ donation, the next generation of working adults will be void of sympathy and support towards helping others in need, especially the donation of organs.

Personally, I feel that youths of modern society do not get sufficient opportunities to experience and witness the emotionally complex process that a myriad of people are strung into regarding organ donation. Be it if someone is suddenly thrust into a scenario where they become an organ donor or they are instead forced to embark on a mentally exhausting conquest to find a fitting donor, organ donation requires an incredible level of maturity from each and every person involved in it. Because of a lack of exposure to such worrying episodes, the majority of youths today are unable to relate to having to bear significant responsibilities in important situations such as organ donation. Void of any emotional connection to help them sympathise with this stressful process, this is the main reason that we see an evident absence in youths’ involvement regarding organ donation. Consequently, youths will also have mitigated levels of willingness to donate their own organs to people in need of one.

A study from BioMed Central which assessed Singaporeans of their knowledge of and willingness to participate in corneal donation, produced results which indicated 73.2% of students had failed the assessment and only 31% of assessed students were willing to donate their corneas. They concluded that students who were more well-informed about organ donation were 1.71 times more likely to donate their corneas. From this report, it is clear that there are a large number of youths that are not educated enough about organ donation, which will cause them to experience uncertainty or doubt when facing the concept of donating their own organs to lend a helping hand, or any other organ for that matter.

However, just like a flash of hopeful lightning in a dark cloud, there exists a number of youths who are actively informed of organ donation and understand the depth of such a weighty responsibility. The question is, are these people simply unnoticeable specks in a crowd of dangerously indifferent youths when confronted with their views on organ donation? Are there enough of them to break the stigma of youths not displaying enough maturity or knowledge of the matter to sympathise with the topic of donating one’s organs?

There is definitely a hidden potential among a large majority of youths today for blossoming into knowledgeable, caring men and women of tomorrow. However, numerous youths fail to unlock that deeper understanding within themselves due to a withered connection and relation to organ donation. When youths eventually develop an emotional understanding of the complicated donation process that people today inevitably face, I do believe that they can shine as individuals who are willing to contribute to society by means of donating their organs in the future or at least being able to sympathise with being an organ donor or a person in need of an organ transplant. It is evident that there is an urgent need to raise awareness among youths about the thousands around the world that are in desperate need of organ donation and encourage them to implore further about the entire process. Only then will they be able to recognise the sacrifices that every significant role in the system has painstakingly given up.

In the shoes of the organ donor, youths will be able to realise the moral obligations that the people in question have to fulfil. Saving a life is no laughing matter – one has to keep their own organs in good condition to prevent any transplantation difficulties from arising during the process. Alternatively, seeing the world through the resilient eyes of an organ donation patient, youths will be able to feel how mentally overbearing the search for an organ donor can be. Experiencing the feeling of being on the brink of losing your life is something that can drastically change someone’s understanding of the world around them.

Some may argue that youths will only be able to embrace these feelings through personal experiences that they have lived through themselves, which might include a family member or even themselves going through the organ donation process, be it as the donor or the patient. Contrary to those beliefs, youths are not completely sealed away within four walls that trap them with the inescapable feeling of apathy towards this issue once they do not get to experience it themselves. With the use of social media and more means of communication being developed in today’s day and age, it is increasingly easier for youths to expose themselves to the personal stories of people who have undergone organ donation.

I feel that it is definitely possible for these youths to develop some form of sympathy towards the people sharing their frightening experiences with the world. It is up to these same youths to keep themselves informed and updated about the happenings of organ donation to ensure that the next generation of adults will have the emotional maturity to save the lives of people in need. When these youths blossom into young adults of tomorrow, they will be given the option to fill out a pledge form which makes them eligible as organ donors upon dying. However, when they lack the level of understanding that organ donation calls for, they will tend to have a reluctance towards applying as an organ donor. Therefore, youths will have to break the walls of apathy that society has unconsciously built around them due to an inexposure to the sensitivity of life-threatening situations to properly empathise and commiserate with the people involved in the enervating process of organ donation.

In conclusion, regardless of whether youths are able to imagine themselves in the shoes of each of the roles involved in organ donation and manage to live out personal experiences related to the matter, I do believe they can pull themselves out of the void of apathy that societal stigmas have subjected them to. They should try not to close a blind eye to the painstaking process of organ donation and instead attempt to develop an emotional maturity towards the matter by unearthing significant aspect and ideas related to donating organs.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2021 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health).

To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg