VICDOC Summer 2025 - Flipbook - Page 32
Dr Rohit D’Costa (MBBS, FRACP, FCICM, MBioeth) is State Medical Director at
DonateLife Victoria and an intensive care specialist at the Royal Melbourne
Hospital, Victorian Representative on the Australian and New Zealand Intensive
Care Society – Death and Organ Donation Committee, and a member of the
Organ and Tissue Authority’s Transplant Advisory Group. Rohit is also a trainer
for the national Family Donation Conversation workshops, Chair of the Clinical
Governance Committee for the Lions Eye Donation Service and a board member
of Transplant Australia.
How did you become involved
specialists are in Victoria. They are
in organ and tissue donation?
involved in implementing and updating
donation policy within hospitals and
One of the most rewarding aspects of
liaising with relevant stakeholders to
my work in intensive care is supporting
make sure donation systems are as
families during some of their most
effective as they can be. The donation
difficult moments. We are in a privileged
specialist nurses play a really important
position to do this with families. A key
role overseeing and guiding every
part of this support is exploring organ
aspect of the donation process, from
and tissue donation and explaining
conversations with families to navigating
how others can benefit. I’m continually
inspired by the generosity people
show at such times. It reinforces the
commitment, strength and compassion
that bind our community.
In July 2008,
the Government announced a national
reform program that introduced medical
and nursing donation specialist roles. I
was successful at being appointed to
one of those roles in 2011 and have been
involved ever since.
What do the donation specialists do?
logistical issues within hospitals as well
as coordinating transport of organ and
tissue grafts across the country. They
often spend a lot of time supporting
families as they grieve a loss and make
their decision. As we've matured as
an organisation, we've developed a
best-practice system for offering organ
and tissue donation to families. A key
component is collaborative requesting,
where the intensivist talks about the
intensive care aspects and a donation
nurse leads the conversation about
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Today there are around 260 DonateLife
donation. We've found that this model
donation specialist doctors, nurses, and
is associated with the highest consent
support staff who deliver the national
rate, and we feel it maximises the
program across more than 95 hospitals
chance that a family’s decision is one
in Australia. Seventy of those donation
they will not regret in the future.
