Cops briefed on 'Deceased Organ Donation'
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, December 08 2022: A workshop on 'Role of Police in Deceased Organ Donation' was organised for the first time in Manipur by Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network (MOHAN) Foundation to educate the police personnel on their role in medico-legal cases in organ donation on Thursday.

In a release, MOHAN Foundation, JNIMS, Manipur transplant coordinator Thoidingjam Udayini Khuman informed that around 100 police per sonnet participated in the workshop.

The police have a very crucial role to play in the very important and lifesaving cause of organ donation.

Most of the brain death cases (in which organs can be harvested) are a result of road traffic accidents and therefore become medico legal cases.

In all such cases, police are responsible for investigating the deaths and for providing accurate determination of the cause and manner of death for each case.

It is only after they complete their inquest that organ retrieval can take place.

Lack of awareness on the part of police very often leads to delay causing the patient to crash.

The donation rate of a city or region can be influenced positively with a good working relationship between hospitals that generate multi-organ donors and their local forensics and investigating officers.

To achieve this synergy, it very important that police should have an understanding of their role and responsibility, it noted.

The release mentioned that MOHAN Foundation is a 25-year-old NGO that has been working to promote deceased organ donation in India.

A national organisation, it has offices across the country and has recently, with the help of SBI Foundation, set up an office in Imphal at JNIMS headed by programme officer Laishram Monica Devi.

Training the police is an integral part of their mandate along with creating public awareness, training medical and paramedical staff, developing systems in hospitals, counselling grieving families to encourage them to think about donating their love one's organs to save the lives of others requiring transplants, it added.

The Foundation continued that there are over 5 lakhs people in India who are suffering with end stage organ failure, and they can live a normal life if they receive an organ transplant on time.

However, less than 10 per cent receive timely help due to an acute shortage of organs in our country.

Presiding over the workshop, Manipur Police Training College (MPTC) director RK Tutusana Devi said, "Every life is important whether it is a rich or poor man.

This is a great cause and the service that we put will be remembered forever by those whose lives will be saved".

She also assured the Foundation of complete support of the police in cases of organ donation in the future, it mentioned.

The release further conveyed that"Shija Hospitals CMD Dr Khundongbam Palin stressed on the importance of organ donation and how it can save multiple lives.

"Awareness levels on organ donation in the Northeast are extremely low as compared to other parts of the country and a lot has to be done to change this scenario.

Multiple stakeholders have to come together to make organ donation a reality in Manipur - the state government, the health department, the public, hospitals (public & private), media & of course the police are a very important stakeholders", said MOHAN Foundation executive director Pallavi Kumar at the programme.

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