Apollo Hospitals organises inter-corporate skit competition to educate & create awareness on organ donation

Mumbai, August 20 2018: Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai today organised an inter-corporate skit competition to promote organ donation. The initiative saw companies including the Mumbai Port Trust, ONGC, JSW Dolvi, MSEB, RIL, SBI, Central Railway and JSW GBS enthusiastically participating with innovative skits that put forward the message of organ donation. The day long program saw the Chief Guests, Dr Sanjeev Kamble, Director of Health Services, Government of Maharashtra, Dr Gauri Rathod, Assistant, Director, Human Organ Transplant Act, Mr Sanket Pathak, Actor and Ms Sapna Das, Actress and Singer appreciating the efforts of the participants while judging the event. The skits forcefully put forward the message of importance of organ donation in saving lives. The entertaining skits took different paths to convey various aspects of organ donation to the audience that watched with rapt attention. From song and dance to comedy to melodrama, the skits in different genres were united in the message they conveyed. The messages ranged from how one donor can save more than eight lives to how anyone regardless of age or gender can become an organ or tissue donor. Some skits also addressed the misconceptions around organ donation and sought to dispel them. While India has sufficient laws to regulate the process of organ donation, there needs to be more awareness about these laws. In India, lakhs of people succumb to organ failure annually which can easily be prevented if more people pledged their organs for donation. Superstitions, myths, and a lack of awareness on the organ donation process make it difficult for organs to be made available to the needy when the time arises. Reports show that the percentage of organ donation in India is very poor in comparison to other developing countries with a rate of 0.5%. “Creating awareness on organ donation is the need of the hour. Events such as these help create more conversations and enlighten people on organ donation, and the lives that can be saved if more people understood the intent behind it. We chose the format of a skit competition to involve more people in spreading the message and help us achieve this objective,” said Dr. Narendra Trivedi, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Navi Mumbai The performances were aired live on the social media pages of Apollo Hospitals to enable the message to reach viewers from across the country.