From September 20 to 22, 2024, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, New Delhi, hosted the 10th CLBS Symposium 2024 with the theme "Future Directions" at the Auditorium, West Block, Max Hospital. Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Executive Director of MOHAN Foundation NCR, was invited on September 21, 2024 (Day 2), to speak on the topic of “Donor Health Insurance.”

The Centre for Liver and Biliary Sciences (CLBS) at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, runs one of the largest liver transplant programs in the world. It performs over 450 liver transplants annually and has conducted more than 4,500 liver transplant surgeries to date. The Centre also handles complex hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeries and leads in HPB Oncology.

The symposium aimed to promote advancements and shape the future of liver transplantation through collaboration, innovation, and excellence. A range of topics were discussed during the event, including best practice guidelines for biliary complications in LDLT, metabolic dysfunction associated with steatotic liver disease (MASLD), financial issues in liver transplants, expanding the donor pool, DBD and DCD donations, paediatric liver transplant, minimally invasive donor surgery, international organ donation, advances in HCC, and more.

In her presentation on "Donor Health Insurance" during the session on “Financial Issues in Liver Transplant,” Ms. Pallavi Kumar addressed the significant challenges in India's organ donation landscape, particularly the disparity between public and private healthcare systems, which hampers deceased donations. She noted that India has emerged as a global leader in living organ donations due to the limitations in deceased donation infrastructure. Ms. Pallavi emphasized the need to expand living donor programs by adopting innovative approaches such as donor swaps, short and long chains, ABO-incompatible transplants, and non-directed altruistic donations. These strategies have the potential to increase the donor pool and improve transplant outcomes, especially as India’s reliance on living donors continues to grow.

Ms. Pallavi also compared this with the U.S. model, where recipient insurance comprehensively covers living donors, including evaluation, surgery, hospitalization, and post-operative care. She underscored the significance of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which ensures that living donors are not denied coverage or charged higher premiums due to their donation. Additionally, she discussed the role of the National Living Donor Assistance Centre (NLDAC) in the U.S., a government-funded programme that provides financial assistance to donors for non-medical expenses, making living donation more accessible and financially sustainable.

Approximately 60 delegates attended the session.