The Network and Alliance of Transplant Coordinators (NATCO), in association with MOHAN Foundation and the Centre for Management of Health Services (CMHS) – Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad organized the 12th Annual Transplant Coordinators’ Conference at the IIM Ahmedabad campus on the 30th November and 1st December. The theme of this year’s conference was “Let’s Collaborate,” with a focus on exploring public-private partnership options for organ donation in India. Experts from government, industry, transplant professionals, and public health specialists were invited to be part of this focus discussion.
The 12th NATCO conference had close to 150 Transplant Coordinators, working in public and private hospitals, participating from across the country. Faculty included doctors, senior transplant coordinators, NGO heads and representatives, academicians, media professionals, corporate professionals, IAS officers and bureaucrats who shared their ideas and views on a wide range of topics.
Dr. Geetika Vashisth, Senior Project Manager, and Dr. Devansh Vaish, CSR Lead, represented ORGAN India at the conference. Two ORGAN India research papers that were extensively researched by them were presented.
Dr. Devansh Vaish presented our paper titled ‘In Dept Analysis of Queries Received on ORGAN India Helplines’. It was an analysis of what people are looking for when they call us on our Helplines, and what all stakeholders in the field of organ donation can do to help people better.
Dr. Geetika Vashisth presented ORGAN India’s paper titled ‘In-depth analysis of the socio-demographic profile of people from across India who pledged to be an organ donor’. We did an analysis of who the people are who are pledging, and their profile including age, gender, region etc. We are very proud that this research paper by Dr. Geetika Vashisth won the Dr. Amalorpavanathan Best Scientific Paper award at the conference.
ORGAN India, Zublee Foundation, Shatayu, FORT, Donate Life, MF Jaipur Citizen Forum, and Gift of Life Adventure were the NGOs that participated in the event and discussed a possible common template design for all NGOs for organ donation awareness. Dr. Geetika Vashisth represented ORGAN India in the panel discussion.
The conference provided a great opportunity for all stakeholders in the Organ Donation and Transplantation space to collaborate and learn from each other’s work to achieve the common goal of saving lives through organ donation. We will continue this mission in our Annual Collaborative Conclave for Organ Donation which will be held on February 28th, 2020.
