Celebrating Organ Donation Day With Young Nightingales of Tamil Nadu

Organ Donation Day for the year 2013 was organized by MOHAN Foundation and the theme was 'Educating Nurses on Organ Donation'

To celebrate the “Organ Donation Day”, MOHAN Foundation organized a one day workshop - “Educating Nurses on Organ Donation” for nursing students of various colleges of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The event was held on Thursday, 28^th November 2013 at Madras Medical Mission Hospital, Chennai. It was supported by Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Department of Nephrology, Madras Medical Mission.

The aim of the workshop was to impart knowledge on Organ Donation to nursing students. Around 400 participants attended the workshop and were awarded four CME points for their attendance. Student nurses, staff nurses and nursing college faculty from ten nursing colleges and two hospitals participated in this program.

Organ Donor Awareness Week 2013 - Gift of a Lifetime
Organ donor awareness week seeks to address the huge gap in demand and supply in organ transplant so many suffering people can benefit from organ donation and live a healthy life.

The Main Objectives of the workshop were:

To impart knowledge on deceased Organ Donation and Grief Counselling
To introduce to the students the importance of a Transplant Coordinator and taking up Transplant Coordination as a profession

Inauguration - The workshop started with lighting of kuthuvilaku by the dignitaries. Following that Dr. Sunil Shroff, Managing Trustee, MOHAN Foundation, welcomed the gathering. A special address was given by Ms. Kernal, Staff Nurse, Apollo Hospitals who also happened to be a member of a donor family. She mentioned that as nurse she had experience of deceased organ donation, yet when her nephew was declared brain death, she found it very difficult to explain to her own family about his situation. She recounted how she convinced her brother and sister-in-law to give consent for organ donation. As a nurse when she meets the recipient, she rejoices that her nephew is alive within them but at the same time she maintains the confidentiality of her relation to the donor.

Kiwis Initiate Facebook Organ Donor Scheme
Facebook users in New Zealand will be able to share their organ donor status with FB friends. The potential donors can now display “organ donor” as a life event on their timeline.

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan, IAS, Secretary to Government, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu, delivered the chief guest address. In his talk he mentioned that Organ Donation has been possible because of the support of the government, cooperation of hospitals and the difficult work of grief counsellors by transplant coordinators who were being trained by MOHAN Foundation. He said that training of transplant coordinators should be added in the nursing curriculum. The inaugural function came to end with the vote of thanks given by Dr.Hemal Kanvinde, Quality Assurance Manager of MOHAN Foundation.

CME Sessions - There were lectures delivered by eminent faculty on topics that covered Concept of Organ Donation, Identification and Certification of Brain Death, Maintenance of Brain Dead Patient, Grief Counselling, Skin Donation, Role of recipient Transplant Coordinator and Experience of a transplant Coordinator.

ORGAN DONATION
Why is organ donation regarded as crisis with a cure? Read more to find out. View slide show on organ donation.

To engage the students in an interactive way two activities were organized A quiz competition that was conducted by Dr. Navin Jayakumar and street play competition that was judged by Dr. Umapathy, Asst. Professor, D.G.Vaishva College and Mrs Elizabeth Alexander, Volunteer, Junior Achiever Worldwide.

Valedictory Function: The Chief Guest for the valedictory function was Ms Chellamal Marriappan, Secretary, Trained Nurses Association of India, Tamilnadu State Branch and Administrator, The Evangelical Nurses' Fellowship of India. During the valedictory function the best nurses from the different hospitals were awarded - Global Hospital - Mr. Sunil Kumar, Liver ICU Supervisor; Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre - Ms. Narayani, staff nurse; Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital - Ms. Parimila, Staff Nurse received the award on behalf of Neurology ward and Ms. Thilaka received the awarded on the behalf of Intensive Medical Unit. MOHAN Foundation felicitated all the principals of Nursing Colleges.

Quiz competition winners were MMM College of Nursing and Right College of Nursing.

The winners of street play competition were Billroth College of Nursing and Rajalakshmi College of Nursing.

In her valedictory address Mrs. Chellammal Mariappan, mentioned about Organ Donation in India, the importance to have trained nurses in Transplant Field. The valedictory came to an end with a vote of thanks rendered by Ms. S. Kavitha, Marketing Coordinator, MOHAN Foundation, Chennai.

Source-Medindia