On March 2, 2024, an Advocacy Workshop titled 'Building Trust' was organized by MOHAN Foundation in Mumbai, in partnership with ROTTO-SOTTO Mumbai. The program focused on the goodness of living donors and the donor families who put themselves and their grief aside, to give consent to donating their own / their loved ones' organs, altruistically. Hence the need to constantly look at trust enhancing and therefore various stakeholders were brought together at this forum.

Deceased organ donation - Reviewing current practices in Medico Legal Cases (MLC) and issuing revised guidelines by Public Health Department, for smoothening the process to ensure timely handing over donor's body to their bereaved families who, in spite of their grief, take the difficult decision of donating their loved one's organs, thus saving a few other lives.

The panel did a deep dive on Maharashtra's current practices, and it came out that the Maharashtra Police were quite unnecessarily being forced to issue a 'No Objection Letter' thereby giving their approval to retrieval of organs, when in fact the Forensics are the competent authorities to give their approval to retrieval of organs. It was concluded that the panel will take up the responsibility of proposing changes to the Public Health Department and to the Police Department to enact revised guidelines. This would ensure faster handing over of the donor's body to the families, thereby not causing them any further pain and anxiety associated with delays.

Living organ donation - The session aimed to discuss the need for mandating the appointment of an ‘Independent Living Donor Advocate' by the State Governments and Hospitals, thereby providing donor care by someone not involved in recipient care, thus safeguarding the donor and ensuring they are given the opportunity to make informed decisions, without any pressure or coercion in the truest sense.

An introduction to the concept of an 'Independent Living Donor Advocate' was given by Dr Sunil Shroff, Managing Trustee, MOHAN Foundation. This was followed by the sharing of practices followed in the UK and US - Ms Jen Lumsdaine (Living Donation, Scotland) and Ms Dawn Larson and Ms Paige Anderson (Independent Living Donor Advocates) in M Health Fairview Hospital, Minnesota.