Medical experts today discussed the need to raise public awareness on organ donation and challenges faced by countries, including India in this area, during a three-day organ transplantation conference here.
Nearly 700 delegates from India and abroad attended the 27th annual conference of Indian Society of Organ Transplantation organised by Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research's department of nephrology (PGIMER).
About 25 experts from USA, UK, France and SAARC countries are attending the conference which started yesterday.
Various sessions and workshops of the conference dealt with newer techniques of organ retrieval and transplantation, minimal or no scar surgery, paediatric transplantation and post transplant complications.
Speaking on the sidelines of the conference here today, AIIMS's Professor of Surgery from the Department of Surgical Disciplines, Dr Virender Kumar Bansal said: "Organ donation is one such area where media can play a very big role."
"In India, we are short of organs, there are precious organs which we are losing, like in road accidents. Those organs need to be harvested and donated. The whole purpose of the conference is that awareness among the public towards organ donation should be much more," Bansal said.
"Other challenge is that cost of drugs is very high, patients have to be on drugs for life long. The government needs to bring down the cost of the drugs," he said.
"The conference here is also deliberating upon how to improve outcome in transplantations --kidney, liver, pancreas... And the newer transplant which has been introduced is the hand transplant, which is new to India and rather new even in Europe and America," said Ajay Kumar Sharma, Consultant Surgeon in Transplantation, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, UK.
During the conference, sessions were kept on the role of National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO), which is a national level organisation set up under Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, in organ transplantation.
A special session will also be held on the transplant status in SAARC countries, where various speakers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal will share their experience of establishing the solid organ transplant.
ISKCON spiritual leader and founder of Govardhan Eco
Village, Maharaj Radhanath Swami advocated holistic use of water for human survival, saying every drop of water is precious and should not be wasted.
Water, he said, was one of the basic necessities of life and the people are dependent on it spiritually, emotionally and physically.
"We must use water with respect, gratitude and compassion as it was a God's gift to the people," he said.
ISKCON's Govardhan Eco-village at Wada near Mumbai, has undertaken a water resources programme which focusses on planning, developing, distributing and managing the optimum use of water resources, Swami added.
Director of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) Dr Rakesh Kumar said water in the soil nourishes crops so even a small patch of grass holds moisture and equally important for the people would be to conserve invisible water in the air.
Kumar said he was happy to note that Maharashtra government has not allowed industries in water catchment areas so there was no water contamination.
"The municipal corporation in the city supplies 3,700 million litres of water every day to households and 80 per cent of this goes into the drains. We need to preserve this water," he said.
The conference concluded with a panel discussion on 'Integrated Water Resource Management and Sustainable Development'.
Experts also participated in another panel discussion - 'Protecting our water future'.
