On March 25, 2019, MOHAN Foundation conducted an awareness talk on organ donation at Paras Hospitals, Gurugram. It was organized by Mr. Umesh Tiwari (Transplant Coordinator, Paras Hospitals) for the ICU nurses and critical care doctors of the hospital. Dr. Muneet Kaur Sahi coordinated the session and was also the resource person for the session. She was accompanied by Dr. Pallavi Rekhi.

Paras Hospitals, Gurugram, is a 250-bedded flag ship hospital of Paras Healthcare. It is a state of the art multi super specialty hospital providing a complete spectrum of advanced medical and surgical interventions with a comprehensive mix of inpatient and outpatient services.

Dr. P.N. Gupta, Chief of Nephrology & Kidney Transplant at Paras Hospitals introduced the Foundation and its activities to the group and encouraged the critical care nurses to make the session interactive as they have a central role in the organ donation process, from identifying and assessing potential donors and supporting their families to involvement in logistics. He then invited Dr. Muneet to begin the session.

Dr. Muneet requested the participants to introduce themselves and their area of work. The group consisted of nurses from the critical care units and doctors from neuro-critical care. A motivational video on organ donation titled ‘thank you’ was shown and basic concepts of organ donation and transplantation were explained with the help of a powerpoint presentation.

She then, explained the concept of brain death by showing another video and discussed how it is different from coma. The do’s and don’ts of starting a deceased organ donation programme in a hospital were discussed in detail. She also gave some suggestions and valuable inputs to revivify their deceased organ donation programme at Paras Hospitals as the hospital is a recognised kidney transplant centre and has a brain death committee.

The participants had many queries, to name a few:

• Can doctors discontinue the ventilator after the first apnea test, if the family refuses for organ donation?
• When should counselling be initiated, once a potential brain-dead donor is identified in the ICU?

All the queries were addressed by MF representatives. Close to 27 participants attended the session.