MOHAN Foundation conducted an online organ donation awareness programme for the Madras Christian College (MCC) School Alumni – Batch of 1975 and their family and friends on 21^st June 2020 in Chennai.  Ms. Ann Alex, Programme Associate, MOHAN Foundation was invited as the speaker for the talk that the alumni organised via the Zoom web conferencing platform. Around 25 participants attended the session.    

 

Ms. Ann began by explaining the meaning of organ donation and how it became legal after the Transplantation of Humans Organs Act was passed in 1994. To highlight the need to have such discussions, she showed the data of patients with end stage renal disease and the number of renal transplants that are done every year. She added that there were a number of patients with end stage disease of other organs like heart, lungs and liver who required transplants too. She went on to explain that there are two types of donors – live donors and deceased donors and why we try to spread as much awareness as possible on deceased donations. She helped participants understand the difference between circulatory death and brain stem death. The organs and tissues that can be donated while living and after a person dies of circulatory death were listed out. She then focused on brain stem death and listed out the organs and tissues that could be donated. She spoke about how time was critical in transplanting organs from deceased donors, and also touched upon the age of the donor. The role of the Government in the programme was discussed and myths were clarified. India’s organ donation rate was compared with Spain when the difference between opt in and opt out systems was described. 

 

She ended the talk by giving an outline about the Foundation, tollfree helpline number, website and the Foundation’s social media pages.

 

Some of the questions asked were –

1. Can a person with preexisting diseases donate?
2. How is a wife considered for donation since she is not a blood relative?

 

MOHAN Foundation would like to thank Mr. Prakash Mathew and the MCC School Alumni - Batch of 1975 for organising this talk.