MUMBAI: Advocates of organ donation from across the country gathered at Kokilaben Ambani Hospital in Andheri on Friday to deliberate on how the fragmented national programme can be unified and strengthened to save more lives. As hospital and NGO heads, doctors, government officials debated the practical roadblocks, a consensus emerged that the country has to have a well-defined target that it must to strive to achieve.

Most felt India should aim at pushing the deceased organ donor rate to one per million by 2020. “The 2014 rate of 0.34 per million is a significant leap from 0.16 seen in 2012. But it is time to intensify networking,” said Dr Sunil Shroff, managing trustee of MOHAN Foundation, credited with spearheading the successful Tamil Nadu cadaver donation model. Speaking in the panel discussion, he emphasized that the government’s commitment was crucial at this stage.

The discussion delved into issues starting from declaring and identifying brain death, maintaining donors, logistics in transporting organs to equitable distribution among the affluent and non-affording classes of the population. Experts also felt there was a great need to create a national registry of donors and recipients that would additionally contain information about the transplant outcome…..Readmore