On 5th March 2023, a one-day Workshop on Deceased Organ Donation for ICU professionals was conducted by MOHAN Foundation in collaboration with Apollo Hospital, Navi Mumbai. This workshop was designed particularly for ICU Professionals covering the medical, legal and counselling aspects of brain death and organ donation. It drew around 60 participants including the intensive care professionals and critical care staff from different hospitals all over Mumbai region.
Dr.Akshay Chhallani was the moderator of the workshop and the workshop began with a welcome note.
The agenda included the following sessions and panel discussions by eminent speakers and experts from the field:
Dr Prof. Darius Mirza introduced and gave us a glimpse of deceased organ donation in India. Following that was a session on ‘Legal framework for deceased donation in India’ addressed by Ms. Jaya Jairam, Project Director at MOHAN Foundation.The session included chronology, objectives of THOA act
The session on ‘How to get Yes for organ donation- from clinician perspective’ was addressed by Dr.Gunjan Chanchalani where she focused on how teams from critical care are the backbone of deceased donation and the success of the program is determined by their professionalism and intent.
Dr.Aakash Shukla addressed the session on ‘All you want to know about LIVER Transplant’. The session on ‘Brain Stem Death - Identification and Certification’ was presented by Dr. Rahul Pandit. A brief discussion took place amongst the speakers on the topic.There were interesting discussions on ground realities in certifying brain deaths and obtaining consent from family members. A session on ‘Role of SOTTO/ROTTO/NOTTO on deceased donation’ was facilitated by Dr.Sanjeeth Saseedharan. There was a brief elaboration on the role of these bodies on deceased organ donation.
A session on ‘Brain Death Mimics’ was addressed by Dr. Gunadhar Padhi followed by a session on ‘Brain death maintenance’, presented by Dr. DivyaKuckian. The commonly faced challenges in maintaining a brain dead donor, the conventional therapeutic and supportive measures were addressed during the session.
A session continued with a presentation on ‘Breaking Bad news and making the ‘Ask’ and deceased donation pathway’ was facilitated by Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Executive Director at MOHAN Foundation. Following the session conducted on ‘Marginal and Expanded donors’ addressed by Dr. Suvadeep Sen.
There was a panel discussion towards the end of the workshop on ‘Real Life Scenarios- Deceased Organ Donation’ and the panilists were Dr Prof. Darius Mirza, Dr. Bharat Jagiasi, Dr.Archana Thakur and Dr. Sandeep Agarwal. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Akshay Chhallani. The panel discussion addressed different scenarios related to organ donation and their possible solutions. Followed by a session on ‘Role of ZTCC in deceased organ donation and allocation’ addressed by Dr. Bharat Shah.
The workshop was concluded with the vote of thanks and all the eminent guests were felicitated. The delegates were issued participation certificate and a resource manual.