AIIMS Bhubaneswar Spreads Awareness On Organ Donation

Bhubaneswar: 17 people die each day waiting for organ transplant and every 10 minutes another person is added to the transplant waiting list. A single donor can save 8 lives and a deceased donor programme is need of the hour, said eminent experts.

They were speaking  at the Continued Medical Education (CME) and workshop on “Awareness on Organ Donation” organised by the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology, AIIMS Bhubaneswar on Saturday.

Apart from raising awareness among the public, the speakers from different fields of organ transplant highlighted other aspects like choosing appropriate donor and recipient, organ allocation, need of grief counselling and comprehensive quality clinical care. These can further expedite the process of organ transplant, they opined.

Declaring the brainstem death in ICU setups, the neuro physicians and critical care providers play a pivotal role, said Prof Subrat Acharya, President, AIIMS Bhubaneswar.

The one-day workshop organised at AIIMS in association with National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) was attended by Prof Y. K. Chawla, Chairman SSC AIIMS Bhubaneswar and Ex-Director, PGIMER, Chandigarh and Commissioner of Police Saumendra Kumar Priyadarshi.

AIIMS Bhubaneswar Executive Director Prof Ashutosh Biswas promised to extend all support for establishing different transplant services in the national institute. Medical Superintendent Prof S N Mohanty, DEAN Dr P R Mohapatra, DDA Rashmi Ranjan Sethy also participated in the workshop.

The workshop and CME witnessed activity based programmes which aimed to create awareness about organ donation and transplantation which is certainly the need of the hour. The CME involved intensivists, anesthesiologist, neurosurgeon, neurologist, trauma and emergency physician, surgeons, forensic medicine, community medicine etc.

Pioneer in Liver Transplant surgery in public sector Prof Viniyendra Pamecha along with Prof Dipesh Kenwar, Prof Vipin Kaushal were felicitated for their outstanding work in the sector. Similarly, liver transplant recipient Uma Acharya shared her experience and appealed for organ transplantation. Her life changing story was heart touching and motivating for all to pledge for organ transplantation.

Dr Bramhdatta Pattnaik, Assistant Professor, Surgical Gastroenterology AIIMS Bhubaneswar conveyed thanks to all and informed about the walkathon to be held on Sunday by AIIMS for creating awareness.