[1]A blood donation camp; (right) Fr Chiramel
Father Davis Chiramel has shown the world ‘with his own flesh and blood’ that the human body encases a virtuous soul inside. He recently donated one of his kidneys.
It was from the murmurs of his parish people that Fr Chiramel learnt about a financially poor Gopinathan struggling with renal ailments. In fact, people in the locality were busy raising funds to ‘buy’ a kidney from various racketeers to save his life. Gopinathan, father of two small children, was literally struggling. Fr Chiramel did not think twice. He decided to donate one of his kidneys.
After surmounting the prolonged medical and legal obstacles, the ‘divine act’ was carried out at Lakeshore Hospital, Kochi in September 2010. “For me, the possibility of donating an organ of mine to a person not known to me has become a unique and privileged occasion to participate in Christ’s sufferings,” he says. And out from hospital, he announced the formation of the Kidney Federation of India (KFI) — an organisation that aims to promote kidney donation and raise funds to help patients who cannot afford dialysis.
KFI is the sole initiative of Fr Chiramel and his act has encouraged some kindhearted people to offer financial support to kidney patients.
“The first job of KFI was to wipe out the unnecessary fear and misconceptions about kidney donation. Kidney trafficking is big business now. If a doctor comes out in public to talk about kidney donation, it would be misinterpreted,” he says.
Born in Aranattukara in 1960, Fr Chiramel received priesthood from Archbishop Mar Joseph Kundukulam on December, 30, 1988 at St Thomas church and is presently the Vicar at the Nedupuzha Church, Kerala.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/blood-donation-camp-right-fr-chiramel-967