I am a Dutch student in Health information. On the 18th of May, 2007 I stepped into a plane full of Indians, leaving for Hyderabad to work in MOHAN Foundation for a period of four months. This internship would constitute the last part of my study. Now, almost at the end of my stay here, I have the feeling that I know the organ donation world in India almost from top to toe. In the past months, I have been participating in all of MOHAN Foundation’s activities, like giving presentations, distributing information brochures, creating awareness in street campaigns, etcetera. At the same time, I interviewed all kinds of people that are involved in organ donation, like transplant c o o r d i n a t o r s and patients that received an organ themselves. Furthermore I did asmall survey on the awareness on organ donation among the public. Due to this research I found out quite a few  interesting things about organ donation in India. First of all, eye donation is pretty well known now. This procedure had been carried out for some decades now and has become quite common. But more than half of the people are not aware of the concept of organ donation yet. Brain death, which is the condition for organs to be taken out, is known by even less people. On the other hand, after explanation of the concepts of organ donation and brain death most people are very positive about it. After asking the question whether they would be willing to donate their own organs after their death, more than 80% answered this question with yes.

Despite this willingness to donate, far too few organs become available for patients suffering from end stage organ failure. If it’s not the people that refuse to donate, the problem has to lie somewhere else. I experienced that one of the hurdles is the attitude of the hospitals to declare brain death and maintain a brain dead patient. They don’t have a focus on this, because they prefer to provide the bed to another person or are afraid of a scandal (as still organ donation has a bad name in India) and ruin the good name of the hospital. However, at least six people can be saved from this brain dead person! That’s why I think two things are very important to be done. One thing is to educate the public about organ donation and brain death, and make them aware of the fact that in cadaveric organ donation no trading takes place. Once they are aware of the possibility of organ donation in case of brain death, they will come forward for donation themselves. This would be encouraging to doctors who might then be more willing to make a request for organ donation in other such cases. The other thing is to convince hospitals that it’s important to declare brain death as a standard procedure because so many lives can be saved by the transplants.

And finally, it would be very desirable that the government raises some funds to help people in getting enough resources for the transplant. Currently, no social welfare system is there in India, and as a result poor people can never bear the costs of a transplant. Contradictorily, especially the less wealthy give consent to donate far more often than the richest of society. In brief, I think there is a long way to go,but at least MOHAN Foundation is doing an excellent job and they are on the right track towards saving many lives of suffering people in India. Mieke van KollenburgIntern at MOHAN Foundation Hyderabad