A one-day workshop on "Improving Living Donation" was held on Sunday, February 12, 2023, at the Abu Sarovar Portico hotel in Chennai. This Advanced Transplant Coordinator’s workshop was supported by the SBI Foundation.
About 63 participants (both delegates and faculty) attended the workshop. Among the delegates, senior transplant coordinators from India attended the workshop. Topics discussed were:
1. Use of social media to improve donations
2. Special judgements that support living donations
3. Non-directed altruistic donation
The faculty for the sessions were from Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Gujarat. Dr. Anil Kumar, ADDG, DGHS, Govt. of India, Ms. Lisa Burnapp, Consultant Nurse; Associate Medical Director - Living Donation and Transplantation, NHS Blood & Transplant, Dr. Kishore Moharil, Nagpur and Mr. Atul Agnihotri, USA connected via Zoom.
There were talks and panel discussions. Dr Sunil Shroff, Dr Vijaya Sethumadhavan, and Dr Sanjeev Nair moderated the sessions. There was a good amount of discussion on the topics. The major learnings from the workshop were:
1. Social media can be used to increase living donations.It has been used successfully in other countries, where some donations have also begun long domino transplants.At this moment, the Transplant Act is silent about the use of social media to solicit organs.
2. Most of the judgements support the organ failure patient, and the judgements are given in favour of the donation and transplant. There has been a misuse of the terms "domicile" and "NOC" in living donation, and this should stop.
3. There are many Indians who are interested in saving lives through organ donations. India needs to have a separate altruistic donor registry to start non-directed donations, along with a set of criteria for the allocation of such organs.
The MOHAN Foundation thanks all the faculty and delegates for their time and participation in the workshop.
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