Recently Malayalam actor Sreenivasan said that organ donation is a "fraud business" to make money. The actor's statement has invited criticism from various quarters, including an organ receiver.
Mathew Achadan, who had undergone a heart transplant recently, has heavily come down on the actor through his Facebook post.
Achadan wrote in the post, “Dear Sreenivasan, I painfully write this note because I heard about your comments against organ donation. The heart of Neelakandasharma, brought from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi in air ambulance still beat inside me even after 15 months. Earlier I was not able to walk or sit and was expecting death anytime. Now like any others I live a normal life. I run an auto rikshaw and find my livelihood. It is painful that a popular person like you discourage in organ donation, which is actually a great deed. It hurts the people who donates and also hurts people like me who receives the organ to hold back the life.
Being an actor and a writer we Malayalis respect you and give importance to your words. But it is painful to tell you that to give a public talk only after understanding and knowing about things properly.
This is a land of parents who donated the organs of their son, who was just at the door step of death. So I kindly request you not to make such irresponsible comments which can wipe away the lights inside the kind hearted people.”
In a press meet held in Kochi, Sreenivasan had said that hospitals and drug mafia were gaining huge profits through organ donation. He also said that in most cases transplants were failures.
Earlier a college lecturer in Thrissur, Deepa Nisanth, had also come down against Sreenivasan.
She said that an artist should not encourage people to be pessimistic and unkind. She reminded the actor that though humans remain divided ‘outside’ in the name of religion, caste or creed, there are many chances for them to come closer ‘inside’.
“Let discuss later about the success rate. One man’s life becomes bright, when he or she gives permission in writing to take away not only organs but whatever is useful for others,” Deepa wrote.