On May 31, 2019, MOHAN Foundation was invited to conduct an awareness session on organ donation at K.G. Somany & Co., Asif Ali Road, New Delhi. The resource person for the talk was Ms. Pallavi Kumar and she was accompanied by Dr. Muneet Kaur Sahi.

 

K.G. Somany & Co. (KGS) is a third generation Chartered Accountants firm, practicing in India for over 5 decades. The Managing Partner, Mr. K.G. Somany is the past president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and has represented India on the council of International Federation of Accountants.

 

The session began with Mr Somany introducing MF representatives to the group. He also emphasised on the importance of signing up to be an organ donor because it is a generous decision that can save the lives of many individuals. With those words he invited Ms. Kumar to address the group.

 

Ms. Kumar explained the basic concepts of organ donation and transplantation with the help of a powerpoint presentation. She took them through the 5W's i.e. who can donate? why is there a need to donate? what can you donate? when can you donate and what is the process of pledging one's organs. When explaining the concept of brain death, a short video was shown on the said subject. After watching the video the audience had better clarity about brain death and that it is different from coma. Various myths around organ donation with their corresponding reality check were also discussed.

 

Participants also shared their experience on organ donation. One of them shared that her husband had been advised liver transplantation and she did not know how to go about registering for it.  Another one shared that one of her family member had kidney transplantation done in Dubai. Mr Somany also shared his experience about his elder brother desiring to donate his whole body but it was such an emotionally traumatic moment for him that he could not take the decision and requested his elder brothers son to take the decision. Ultimately his brothers corneas were donated.

 

It was an interesting and interactive session. Close to 35 participants attended the session.