Indian NGOs come together to promote organ donation

Mumbai, June 4 (UNI) In a landmark meeting, 100 delegates and NGOs from seven states converged at the Tata Memorial Hospital here in Mumbai for a two-day meet on organ donation here.

The meet, spearheaded by ZTCC (Zonal Transplant co-ordination centre), Mumbai, an NGO that acts as an organ procurement agency, ended yesterday.

During the meeting several issues were discussed like the present scenario of solid organ transplantation, hurdles in donation, issues at the governmental, institutional and societal level as well as the THOA - Transplantation of the Human Organs Act, 1994.

Present at the inauguration function was Calcutta Mayor Bikasranjan Bhattacharya, Mumbai Mayor Dr Shubba Raul, eminent Advocate Ms Rani Jethmalani, Maharashtra State Health Minster Ranjeet Kamble and secretary for Public Health of Maharashtra Ms Chandra Iyyengar.

Some of the prominent NGOs that attended the meet were Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority (AORTA), Delhi; Ganadarpan from Calcutta, ZTCC Karnataka, National Network for Organ Sharing (NNOS), Chennai; Mutli-Organ Harvesting and Networking Organisation (MOHAN), Hyderabad and Mother Orissa. Foreign delegates, advocates and co-ordinators from various hospitals across the country were present at the meet.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Vatsala Trivedi, General Secretary of ZTCC said, ''Organ donation has been an issue in our country for far too long. It has been dealt with at the State-level thus far, hence efforts and results have been fragmented. Therefore such a meet would mean a consensus and uniformity in the manner in which organ donation is dealt with and will eventually mean a much louder impact created on a national scale.'' Every year 3 million people in India suffer from End Stage Renal disease; only 2,500 are lucky to receive a transplant. The dearth in supply of organs can be matched with the demand, when cadaver organ donation is supported by the government and promoted by the medical fraternity. Another societal hurdle is the acceptance of brain death as actual death and not a coma situation. So far Cadaver Organ Donations accounts for only 0.25 percent of transplants done every year, she added.

The meet saw the successful formation of a United and National front for organ donation UNI