Parents of a 40-day-old infant, Sonu, donated eyes and heart valves for organ harvesting in Hyderabad after the baby was declared brain dead due to health complications. It was the convener of Mohan Foundation – an Andhra Pradesh-based NGO working for organ donation movement in the country, who made this donation possible by convincing the baby’s parents.
In a similar incident, a 5-year-old child recently fell from the third floor in Surat and was declared brain dead. His kidneys were donated by the family following intense counselling by an NGO working in Surat for organ donation movement.
Efficient transplant coordination can indeed support the organ donation movement, say experts. And hence to push the movement further, two NGOs – Mohan Foundation and Shatayu – a city based NGO working in this direction have recently tied up to share costs and expertise for training organ transplant coordinators in Gujarat.
“Mohan Foundation and Shatayu Transplant Coordinators Training Program – is the first structured course in the Asian subcontinent,” said Sunil Shroff, head of the dept of urology and renal transplantation in Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, Porur and managing trustee of Mohan Foundation.
“Organ donation becomes possible only if the coordinator rightly intervenes at the toughest moment of a terrible loss for one family and sensitively transforms that loss into a gain for some other family,” said Priyadarshini Shah, the kidney transplant coordinator who has handled more than 500 organ donation cases for Ahmedabad’s Institute of Kidney Disease and Research Centre (IKDRC) and Institute of Transplant Sciences.
“And this ability does not come easy; it demands rigorous training,” says Shah.
Training course on transplant from Jan
Atransplant coordinators training programme by Shatayu, in coordination with Mohan Foundation, will be launched in Ahmedabad in January ’12. The course has been tailored to suit the requirements of candidates from both medical and non-medical background. The aim is to create a cadre of healthcare professionals dedicated to transplant coordination. TNN
