On March 26, 2022, MOHAN Foundation in collaboration with Kasturba Hospital, Manipal, Karnataka organised and conducted a seminar on, "Brain death Diagnosis and Donor Management supported by The SBI Foundation.

The resource person for the seminar was Dr. Mahesha Padyana MD, Consultant-Critical care medicine, Manipal Hospitals Bangalore. Around 120 staff members which included the doctors, nurses, marketing team, operations team and social workers attended the seminar. Organizational support was provided by Mr. Jibu Thomas and the operations team of the Hospital.

Ms. Ranjini Shankar - Project Manager and Ms. Sherlyn Fernandes - Program Officer represented MOHAN Foundation. 

Dr. Nikita Apuri (Executive-operation department), initiated the session by the welcome address and introduction of the speakers.

Dr. Girish Menon (HOD of Neurosurgery department), addressed the audience and spoke about the importance of creating awareness about organ donation in a country like India and also, he gave a brief philosophical outlook on death.

In the first segment of the seminar, Dr. Mahesha Padyana played a short video on brain death. He elaborated on the concepts of Brain death diagnosis and Donor Management. He explained about the basic concepts of brain death, criteria for organ donation and the statistics of organ donation. He also spoke about the various tests that are conducted to diagnose the absence of brain stem like; absence of pupillary reflex response to light, absence of corneal reflexes, absence of vestibulo-ocular reflex, absence of cranial nerve response to pain, absence of gag and cough reflexes and apnoea test. He then briefed on the procedures to be followed to maintain a donor which included brain death certification, Serology tests, proper functioning of the ventilator.

In the second segment of the seminar, Ms. Ranjini Shankar presented about the Organ donation awareness activities carried on by the Karnataka team. She highlighted on conducting the awareness sessions as it plays a key role to promote organ donation among the public. Finally, she touched upon how many audiences were reached on the awareness of organ donation and the audience were public, employees, police officers, doctors, nurses, and students.

After the session the audience raised a few questions, including:

• Government schemes/financial assistance available for those who cannot afford the transplantation costs
• Age Criteria for Organ Donation
• Are the organs specifically charged? 

All the questions were answered by Mrs. Ranjini Shankar

Dr. Sharath S thanked the speakers for an enlightening session.

Dr. Nikita Apuri expressed her gratitude towards MOHAN Foundation in her vote of thanks.

MOHAN Foundation is thankful to Kasturba Hospital, Manipal for this opportunity.