NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, MARCH 1
Stating that nearly one lakh liver and kidney patients in Gujarat are waiting for organ donors to get a fresh lease of life but only 50 to 100 persons get organ donations per year, despite innumerable awareness campaigns. One organ donor or brain dead person can save the life of 7-8 persons and live longer for more than 150 years too, said Dr Bhavin Vasavada, a kidney transplant specialist of Shalby Hospital here on Saturday.
Speaking to the media, Dr Bhavin said, “A 79-year-old female, hailing from Rajasthan and now residing at Vejalpur, Ahmedabad, with the history of a domestic fall, came to Shalby emergency in an unconscious state. The patient was intubated and diagnosed with intracranial haemorrhage and intraventricular haemorrhage. Following this, the patient was shifted to Surgical ICU and despite resorting to all options available in hand; the patient could not be revived and hence declared as ‘brain dead’ on January 27, 2020.”
Since the ‘brain dead’ patient was healthy her relatives were explained about the organ donation measures to which they willingly agreed. After following all the protocols of SOTTO, (State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization), the liver, kidneys, and cornea of the brain dead patient were retrieved for transplantation.
Dr Bhavin said, “ The liver has been transplanted to a 45-year-old female patient from Anand who was critically ill. On the 17th day of the transplant, the patient was discharged from SG Shalby as medically fit. Both the kidneys were transplanted to a 50-year-old male from Odhav, Ahmedabad who is recuperating well after the transplantations. The cornea retrieved from the cadaveric donor was given to Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. This organ donor has given new lease of life to two patients.”
Dr Harshil Shah, liver transplant specialist, and neurosurgeon, said, “The awareness on organ donation is widespread in the US, Europe but in our country, it is very dismal. It is estimated that over 5, 00,000 people die in India every year due to the non-availability of organs and every 12 minutes, one more patient is being added to the waiting list. Though India is the second-most populous country in the world, the organ donation rate at just 0.26 per million population as compared to 26 in the US, 35 in Spain and 36.5 in Croatia. As per the available data, more than a million people suffer from end-stage organ failure, but only a handful of transplants are performed annually in India. When it comes to Kidney transplant, about 5,000 people only succeed in getting them against a waiting list of 150, 000. In case of liver cancer, liver transplant is the only option to save the patient. At Shalby, a 13-month-old child’s liver was transplanted to a patient.”
When asked about the procedure of determining ‘brain stem death’, Dr Shah said, “The hospitals affiliated with medical colleges have been authorized for declaration of brain stem death in the state. They follow the SOTTO protocol in determining the brain death and sharing of harvested organs. With the firm determination of the government and governing bodies of organ transplant in India – NOTTO, and SOTTO – to make the protocols easier for an organ transplant, we all can hope that more and more donors and their relatives will come forward to support the cause of saving lives.”
Incidentally, Gujarat won three awards for the Best SOTTO (State Organ Tissue Transplant Organization) in December 2019. The Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre (IKDRC) at Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad is the seat for SOTTO. The State Advisory Committee for Organ and Tissue (SACOT) Transplant and Gujarat Network for Cadaver Organ Sharing (GNCOS) are all set to launch a dedicated website for cadaver organ donation.
In a record of sorts, the Gujarat University of Transplantation Sciences (GUTS) is the first University for Transplantation and Allied Sciences in the whole world. It was established in 2015 under the able guidance of visionary Prof. H.L.Trivedi, the Founding Director of Smt. Gulabben Rasiklal Doshi and Smt. Kamlaben Mafatlal Mehta Institute of Kidney Diseases & Research Centre – Dr. H.L.Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences (IKDRC-ITS), Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
