On August 30, 2018, MOHAN Foundation conducted an awareness session on organ donation at JK Cement Ltd., New Delhi.  Mr. Saarthak Bakshi (CEO, International Fertility Centre, New Delhi) made the necessary introductions at their Delhi office to get the session organized. Dr. Pallavi Rekhi further coordinated the same with Mr. Sanjay Sinha (Head Admin & Security, J K Cement Ltd.). Dr. Muneet Sahi was the resource person for the talk.

JK Cement Ltd is an affiliate of the multi-disciplinary industrial conglomerate JK Organization which was founded by Lala Kamlapat Singhania. For over four decades, JK Cement has partnered India’s multi-sectoral infrastructure needs on the strength of its product excellence, customer orientation and technology leadership. The company has over four decades of experience in cement manufacturing.

The session began with an inspirational video on organ donation and a few introductory questions regarding the same were asked to gauge their knowledge level. Participants answered most of the questions correctly and also shared that they really liked the video.

Dr. Muneet then introduced the concept of organ donation & transplantation. She stressed on the fact that it has become the need of the hour as many people are suffering from end stage organ diseases and are dying due to want of an organ as the demand of organs is more and supply less.

She explained the organ donation rate (ODR) that vary widely by country and region with the help of a table that showed deceased donors per million (pmp) in India and abroad. She then asked the participants the reason of European countries having a much better ODR as compared to India. Majority of them cited, ‘lack of awareness’ as the primary cause. While on this topic, the consent system i.e. Opt in and Opt out system of organ donation that are followed worldwide were also explained.

The concept of brain death was elaborated upon with the help of a video that cleared the difference between coma and brain-stem death. The myths related to organ donation that exist in the society were touched upon and their corresponding reality checks were provided.

The audience members present for the session were extremely interactive and lively. They made the session really interesting by asking a lot of questions and presenting their views. Some of the topics discussed were the portion size (%) of liver that is retrieved from the donor in living donation, whom to contact in case one wishes to donate their loved one’s organs in hospital/home death, feasibility of India adopting Opt out system, how long can the organs be preserved after retrieval from a brain dead donor and formation of a green corridor etc. etc.

The session ended with another motivational movie on organ donation. Close to 52 participants attended the session and 2 forms (Form 7) were picked up.