Article in ibibo.com About organ donation

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Article in ibibo.com About organ donation

Father donates son’s organs to set an example- in the call of duty

http://cyberscrap.blogspot.com/2008/01/father-donates-sons-organs-to-set.html

CEO of Andhra chapter of a multi-state donation initiative shows why it’s working.

Hyderabad
: Every time he received a call about an accident and a brain dead
victim, K Raghuram would get to work. As CEO of the Andhra Pradesh
chapter of MOHAN (Multi-Organ Harvesting Aid Network), a private
initiative to encourage organ donations, he would rush, battle
formalities, spend hours counseling relatives. If he finally succeeded
in convincing a family to donate the victim’s organs, he would organize
for the patient to be taken to one of the ten hospitals in MOHAN’s
network.

Then on January 13, 2004, two years into his job, he got a call at midnight.

One
more brain-dead victim was available — this time, it was his son. Swamy
Narayan, a 19-year-old second-year engineering graduate was traveling
with friends on the Ibrahim-Patnam highway en route to the Nagarjuna
Sagar dam when their car hit a median, part of construction for the
Krishna water pipeline, about 25 km from Hyderabad. Swami was thrown
out of the car into a ditch, his head hit the ground with crunching
impact, severing the brain stem.

Read on…

A chain of kidney donations

Johns Hopkins Hospital performs six transplants at once

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Involved nine surgical teams and six operating rooms

Donors, recipients matched using living-donor system

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Date:10/04/2008
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/10/stories/2008041054642200.htm

BALTIMORE: Surgeons at the Johns Hopkins Hospital here have
transplanted half-a-dozen kidneys simultaneously, in a complex surgical
procedure that is believed to be the first of its kind.

The transplants done on Saturday were made possible when a so-called
altruistic donor, who was willing to donate to anyone, was found to be
a match for one of six transplant candidates. Five of the candidates
had a willing donor whose kidney was incompatible with their particular
friend or relative, but a match for another of the six.

The 10-hour-long surgical procedures used six operating rooms and nine surgical teams.

“All 12 are doing great, the six kidneys are working well,” Robert
Montgomery, director of Hopkins’ transplant centre and head of the
transplant team, said.

The transplant follows a quintuple transplant performed in 2006 at
the hospital and several triple transplants. Most kidney transplants in
countries such as the United States are cadaver-based, which means they
use organs taken from people who have died, but doctors prefer organs
from live donors because the success rates are higher. The donors and
recipients in the six-way transplant were matched using a living-donor
system developed at Johns Hopkins.

Wider system

Dr. Montgomery said the procedures are performed simultaneously in
order to ensure that no one backs out after their loved one has
received a kidney. He has advocated a wider system of connecting
altruistic donors, transplant candidates and incompatible but willing
donors to increase the number of available organs.

Randy Bolten, whose brother is President George W. Bush’s chief of
staff, Josh Bolten, was among the donors. He could not donate a kidney
to his wife, Jeanne Heise, but he was a match for another recipient.
Ms. Heise, who has suffered from kidney disease for more than 30 years,
was about to go on dialysis when the chain of transplants became
possible.

“We want to spread the word about this sort of group surgery and
living organ donation,” Ms. Heise said in a statement issued by the
National Kidney Foundation of Northern California.

More than 252,000 kidney transplants have been performed in the U.S.
since the United Network for Organ Sharing started keeping data in
1988. Some 87,000 of the kidneys came from living donors. — AP

© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

Tamil Nadu for more cadaver-based transplants: Article in The Hindu dt 11-4-08

Date:11/04/2008
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/11/stories/2008041159941200.htm

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Government is holding consultations with the Centre to
amend the Transplantation of Human Organs Act so as to make its
provisions effective and facilitate more cadaver-based transplants,
Health Secretary V. K. Subburaj said Thursday.

Addressing doctors and students at a continuing medical education
programme organised by the nephrology unit of the Kilpauk Medical
College on the eve of the World Kidney Day, Mr. Subburaj said
cadaver-based transplants had to come up in a big way to help people
suffering from chronic renal failure.

Against the backdrop of road traffic accidents claiming an estimated
12,000 lives a year, the Government allowed State-run hospitals to
perform cadaver-based transplants using organs harvested from the
brain-dead, he said. Even without a mechanism in place, the general
hospital had done 15 cadaver-based transplants so far.

What with various hurdles, cadaver-based transplants had not taken
off in a big way in the State: only 150 transplants of this category
had been performed against around 50,000 procedures conducted annually
in the West, he said.

According to Mr. Subburaj, of the 10 million patients with kidney
disorders in the world, one million were in India. He highlighted the
need for patient education programmes on the importance of maintaining
the health of the kidney. Mr. Subburaj said the Government had
tightened scrutiny after several illegal kidney transplants came to
light some time ago. Following these incidents that were primarily
owing to the loopholes in the law, the number of transplants done
annually in the State had dropped from 900 to 300. The Government had
authorised 51 private hospitals to conduct renal transplants.

Pointing out that a large number of renal failures was triggered by
hypertension and diabetes, he called for awareness campaigns to keep
the two conditions under check. Since the Government launched the
preventive health intervention, “Varumun Kappom,” an estimated two lakh
people had been diagnosed with diabetes, and an equal number with
hypertension.

K. V. Thiruvengadam, former professor of medicine, Madras Medical
College, stressed the importance of evaluating the patient as a whole
in an era of specialisation. Spending time on delving into patient
history was a healthy habit among clinicians. Calling upon the
practitioners to develop a broad perspective, Dr. Thiruvengadam said a
clinician should be a jack of all trades and a master of one.

He presented the Lifetime Achievement Awards to the former
nephrology chiefs at the college, M. S. Amaresan and M. A.
Muthusethupathy.

© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

Centre’s nod to amend cadaver transplant law

Date:09/04/2008
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/09/stories/2008040958890400.htm

HYDERABAD: With hardly 5,000 kidney transplants being conducted as
against the annual requirement of 1.5 lakh in the country, the Centre
has agreed to amend the law to permit genetically-related donors to
donate kidneys and aggressively promote cadaver transplants.

This assurance was given recently by Union Health Minister A.
Ramdoss to a delegation of five leading nephrologists that called on
him in New Delhi.

It submitted a memorandum suggesting measures to tighten the Organ
Transplantation Act in the wake of kidney rackets.The delegation
comprised A. Gopal Kishan (Hyderabad), Vidya Charya (Mumbai), K.S.
Chugh (Chandigarh), K.K. Malhotra (Delhi) and M.K. Mani (Chennai).The
delegation sought a ban on unrelated donors and aggressive promotion of
cadaver transplants. It wanted everyunit to have a coordinator.

© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

Nidhi Jamwal:The illegal organ trade trail

The New Nation – Internet Edition

The illegal organ trade trail

Nidhi Jamwal

With inputs from Vibha Varshney, Sumana Narayanan, Ravleen Kaur “When I tell my colleagues I have not urinated for more than three years, they think I am making excuses to shirk work. They do not understand how painful dialysis is. It leaves me terribly weak. But then I cannot afford to miss work.

My monthly expense on medication and dialysis exceeds Rs 30,000,” says Nozer H Canteenwalla, who suffers from end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Three times a week, the 42-year-old development officer at a Mumbai-based insurance firm leaves office early for a dialysis session at the city’s Lilavati Hospital. A kidney transplant could have brought an end to his travails but Canteenwalla hasn’t found a donor in five years.

“Getting an unrelated donor is extremely difficult in India. Cadaver organ donations are extremely rare in the country. Dialysis just delays the inevitable,” says Meeta Shah of the Narmada Kidney Foundation in Mumbai, an institution Canteenwalla visits often to get information on ESRD. Vatsala Trivedi, secretary of Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC)-an organization that coordinates between hospitals to improve organ donations and transplantation system in Mumbai-concurs. “There are barely 15 kidney donations in a year in Mumbai, while 100 people are added to the list of patients requiring a transplant.

Eight hundred and fifty people are listed with us for a kidney transplant in the city,” she says. Trivedi notes that only half of the organs donated in the city come from cadavers.

Exact figures of ESRD patients in the country are not easy to come by. Conservative estimates put their numbers at several hundreds of thousands.

“Every year an estimated 400,000 Indians develop ESRD. Of these, barely 15,000 receive regular dialysis. And there are not more than 4,000 transplants in a year. So, about 380,000 patients remain outside the pale of the formal healthcare system.

Where do they go? It’s anybody’s guess. It’s no surprise illegal organ trade flourishes in India,” says Bharat V Shah, a consultant nephrologist with Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai.

The government’s estimates are somewhat conservative. But even they betray the enormity of the problem. “There are about 400,000 organ failure cases in India every year. 150,000 of them are ESRD patients. But only 35,000 organ transplants have taken place since 1994, when the Transplantation of Human Organs Act was passed,” says a source at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Most doctors blame the demand supply hiatus on the organ transplant act. It does not put any fetter on “near relatives”-spouse, son, daughter, father, mother, brother or sister above the age of 18-donating organs. But things get extremely difficult if the donor is not a close kin. Such a person has to establish “a case of love and affection” with the recipient. Distant relatives find it difficult to donate organs. “My sister wanted to donate a kidney to my daughter Shabana, who suffers from ESRD. But she wasn’t allowed. Medical reasons don’t permit my husband and me to donate,” says Shamima Khatun of east Delhi’s Welcome Colony.

In the aftermath of the Amit Kumar scandal, doctors seem to have become Extra cautious about the kinship angle. In many cases, donors have been asked to undergo DNA tests, which mean an additional cost of Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000. “We don’t want to take chances,” says Harsha Jauhari, chairperson of the department of renal surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi.

Organ donors have to prove their “affection” for the intended recipient before an authorization committee. Some doctors say that it’s often hard to find the committee members when emergencies strike. But R R Katti, assistant director of DGHS Maharashtra and member of Mumbai’s authorization committee, refutes these charges: “We meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month” he says.

But then he acknowledges the problem: “There should be eight authorization committees in Maharashtra but only five have been formed.” Many states, including Punjab and Haryana-where the Amit Kumar racket was unearthed-do not have a single authorization committee.

Katti is no supporter of the affection clause. “It’s absurd. One surely can’t expect the donor to slit his/her wrist to prove affection. The committee has no way but to take recourse to crude subjective methods,” he says.

Illicit operators find it easy to work around this loophole. The organ transplant act is unequivocal that no money should change hands between the recipient and the unrelated donor. But experts find it hard to believe that this is always the case.

“Why is it always that a poor labourer has affection for a rich man?” asks M S Kamath, a medico-legal expert in Mumbai.

The organ transplant act stresses on transplants from cadavers. But according to DGHS, only 1,000 of the 35,000 transplants performed after the act came into force have used organs from cadavers. A 2006 article in the Indian Journal of Urology notes that 233 of the 8,428 transplants in 13 hospitals across the country used organs from a cadaver.

Why hasn’t cadaver organ transplant made much headway in India? The reasons are various. “A team of four doctors is required to declare a person brain dead.

It includes a neurosurgeon and a neurophysician who do not benefit-professionally or financially-from a transplant. This means that brain death declarations are rare,” says an official with DGHS.

Some doctors say the medical establishment works to the detriment of transplants from cadavers. “Transplants from live donors mean use of more drugs.

There is always a junket or two in the offing from pharma majors. So why get into their Bad books by doing transplants from cadavers?” asks a senior doctor from Mumbai who did not wish to be named.

Others blame the “appropriate authority” created under the organ transplant act To register hospitals performing organ transplants. “Twenty three hospitals are registered to perform kidney transplants in Mumbai. But most are averse to cadaver organ transplants,” says a senior kidney surgeon of the city.

Medics like him say the hospitals are cagey in declaring brain deaths, even though such deaths constitute 5-10 per cent of all deaths in hospitals. The kidney surgeon comes up with a startling revelation: there has been no cadaver organ transplant at two of Mumbai’s most famous hospitals: Breach Candy and J J Hospital. “Why don’t the authorities revoke the licences of such hospitals?” he asks. But some doctors, like Jauhari of Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, maintain the problem is not all the hospitals’ making. “Once their loved one dies, the family is too distressed to hear anything about organ donation. And there are detailed criteria for organ retrieval. Brain death diagnosis takes at least four doctors, who are not always at hand. So the organ goes waste,” he says.

Trivedi of Mumbai’s ZTCC dismisses these arguments. “The state-run Sion Hospital in Mumbai has conducted 22 transplants from cadavers in five years. Why can’t super-speciality private hospitals emulate it?” she asks. There are others like her who feel hospitals haven’t invested much in social workers who can counsel the family of a brain dead person to donate his/her organs. D Rana of the Indian Society of Nephrologists says, “Doctors don’t inform relatives about brain Deaths lest they be accused of vested interest. Most surgeons do not want to get into transplants,” he adds.

Nephrologists also say the transplantation act’s insistence on organ retrievals at registered hospitals puts unnecessary fetters. “In 2002, when I was practicing in Bombay Hospital, I heard of a brain death case in Dombivilli. The parents of the deceased wanted to donate his kidneys. The body was not at a registered hospital, but the organ had to be retrieved quickly. So I had no option but to go against the organ transplant law. Subsequently, a complaint was filed and my transplantation licence was cancelled. I wanted to save two lives. But ended up being punished,” says Bharat V Shah.

A senior official in Maharashtra believes the government is planning to legalize organ trade. Nephrologists like Bharat V Shah have been advocating this for some time. “Law has made organ donations from a living donor almost impossible and cadaver transplant is not picking up. So the government should allow people to register legally for kidney donation. Such people should be given compensation.

This might save many lives,” Shah says. Jauhari supports him: “There is no long-term risk in kidney donation.” Not all medics support legalized organ trade; some point to an ethical aspect.

“Given the discrepancy between organ demand and their availability, trade in organs could become corporate business. Would that be ethical?” asks a Maharashtra government health official. Others like Kamath are more vehement “Will health minister Ambumani Ramadoss donate his kidney before legalizing organ trade in India?” he asks.

Many fear that legalizing organ trade will only help the illegal trade.

“How will we ensure that the donor gets the money? Middlemen will surely take away most of the proceeds,” says Katti. But some health officials believe that the market will eliminate the middle man. “Compensation can be pooled and donors paid a monthly interest. The scheme will surely find takers amongst insurance companies,” says a government official. But then how many poor people will donate organs knowing they will not get any immediate monetary compensation?

Surely not many.

These debates have little meaning for the family of Shakuntala Negi. The 52-year-old Delhi resident has been waiting for a kidney donor for more than two years.

“People who want kidneys get it one way or the other. We all know where these organs come from. Who is bothered if scandals are exposed, at least a dying person gets a new lease of life,” says Shweta, Negi’s daughter-in-law.

Desperation such as this works to the advantage of the black market. It is believed that Mumbai is the biggest centre of the illegal organ trade in the country.

“Poor migrants are lured into selling their kidneys,” says Kamath. The case of P Ravichandran is an illustration of the illicit system’s efficiency. Ravichandran, chief consultant and head of nephrology and transplantation at St Thomas Hospital in Chennai, was caught in Mumbai in 2007 for carrying out illegal kidney transplant surgeries by duping poor people.

It’s very difficult to take action against such violators, says Katti adding, “Only the appropriate authority appointed under the organ transplant act can take action.

The police can’t arrest people for infringing laws framed under the organ transplant act. At best, they can initiate criminal proceedings against them for forgery or for threatening people’s lives.”

Katti says hardly any complaint reach the appropriate authority. “Most donors are not naïve. Both the donor and the recipient know they are guilty. Poor donors approach us only when they are duped. And then, many go back on their affidavits,” Katti says.

“I understand it is not easy for the living to donate a kidney; but then why is the government not encouraging transplants from cadavers,” asks ESRD patient Nozeer H Canteenwalla. This aspect of the problem has been obscured in the media spotlight over illegal organ trade. Most doctors believe that cadaver organ transplants hold the key to change.

“When the organ trade act came into effect in 1994, the focus was on banning trade in human organs and setting up of a system for cadaver donations.

After the Amit Kumar expose, the media has been concentrating on illegal organ trade. But what about a control mechanism?” asks Rana of the Indian Society of Nephrologists.

“Cadaver organ does not require a special infrastructure. But rather than encouraging such transplants, the government is promoting transplants from live donors,” Trivedi of ZTCC rues. She carried out Maharashtra’s first successful cadaver kidney transplant on March 27, 1997. She has conducted 36 such transplants since. But there aren’t many like her in the country.

Rashmi Jadhav, a government employee in Mumbai, is a living testament to the advantages of cadaver transplants. She got a new lease of life after a kidney donation from a brain dead person in 2004. “We do not have the words to thank the parents of our beneficiary,” says Jadhav, a resident of a slum-settlement in Mumbai.

Developed countries have a lot more people like Jadhav. For cadaver donations provide a large majority of the organs required for transplant. “For example, 95 per cent of kidneys used for transplant in Spain come from cadavers,” says Katti. In the UK, one in seven organ transplants is from non-beating heart donors, individuals whose deaths result from heart and respiratory failure. In India, contrastingly, most cadaver transplants are from brain dead people. Organ retrievals are very difficult when deaths happen outside a hospital, medics say.

There are many who believe retrieval from the brain dead would go a long way in dealing with the organ shortage problem. “Every year, about 4,000 people end up brain dead in the country. That means 8,000 potential kidneys and corneas and 4,000 heart, lungs, pancreas and livers that can be used for transplants,” says Suniel Shroff, managing trustee of the Mohan Foundation, a Chennai-based charitable organization that promotes transplants from cadavers.

Many doctors are pinning hopes on DGHS’ National Organ Transplant Programme. It is slated to be in operation in the next three to four months.

DGHS sources say the programme will emphasize cadaver donations, and make live donations simpler. “We have proposed that the donor be given medical insurance for three years and the first premium be paid by the organ recipient,” says Jauhari one of the programme’s architects.

Other doctors say that a cadaver donation programme must have the provision for a national network that allows hospitals to exchange organs so that they can be used for the best matched recipient. Creating such a registry is not much of a problem, says Sanjay Agarwal, senior consultant at the nephrology department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The institute has an organ retrieval system which does precisely that. But then it is not a national network.

Many doctors are, however, sceptical of registries. For one, doctors Cannot legally remove organs without the family’s consent. “Anyhow, a very small percentage of people who register as donors will die a brain death,” says Sumana Sundaram, project coordinator at the Mohan Foundation. “The challenge is in getting brain dead road accident victims to the hospital quickly,” she says.

Katti says India needs a national organ retrieval programme to boost cadaver transplant; it should require the setting up of retrieval centres across the country.

Suggestions such as Katti’s were considered by a committee set up by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in 2004. Its mandate was to review the organ transplant act. The committee recommended that: It be incumbent on hospital staff to request families of brain dead people for organ donations; increase in ICU facilities in hospitals to keep the brain dead; and organ retrievals from non-beating heart donors.

A draft amendment to the organ transplant act put up on the MoHFW’s Website does not give much space to these recommendations. Is the ministry dragging its feet? No, assures an official at the ministry. “A cadaver donation programme is in the making and it will take another month or so,” he says.

Trivedi remains optimistic. “If we promote a cadaver transplant programme sincerely, 75 per cent of the organ demand can be met. Only after this option is exhausted should we consider live donor transplants,” she says.

Bid to popularise cadaver transplant

THE HINDU 07-08-2008

Bid to popularise cadaver transplant

K. Santhosh

New society to launch campaign

Thrissur: The Rotary Club of Trichur City has set up a body, RISORT (Rotary Initiated Society for Organ Retrieval and Transplantion), to popularise cadaver transplant in the State.

The Club has launched a State-wide campaign, involving doctors, NGOs, hospitals, police, lawyers, District Collectors, MPs, MLAs and religious leaders, in this connection.

The formation of the society follows an announcement by Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss in Chennai recently that suitable changes would be made to the law (Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994) to popularise cadaver transplant.
Ethical authority

“The Government will set up a national ethical authority in this regard. The private sector and NGOs can play a major role in creating awareness of the benefits of cadaver transplant,” the Minister was quoted as saying.

Doctors say organs that can be transplanted include eyes, heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart valves, skin, bones, bone marrow, connective tissues, middle ear, blood vessels and small intestine.

Only eyes and tissues (middle ear, heart valves, connective tissues, ligaments, bones and skin) can be removed after death. The Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994 states: “Where any organ is to be removed from the body of a person in the event of his brain stem death, no such removal shall be undertaken unless such death is certified…on satisfaction of such conditions and requirements as may be prescribed by a board of medical experts…”

Cadaver donors are patients with severe brain injury resulting in brain death, defined as “complete irreversible cessation of all brain function.”

“More than three million people in India suffer from terminal renal disease. Of them, only 2,500 patients receive kidney transplants. In the past decade, about 1,000 cadaver transplants have been done in the country. Spain has the highest number of brain-dead patients donating organs — 32 per million population. Societies to promote cadaver transplants actively function in Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi,” says P. N. Suresh, president of Rotary Club of Trichur City.

“The Government’s objective is to ease the conditions for cadaver transplant while ensuring that irregularities do not take place,” Mr. Ramadoss was quoted as saying.

Babu Sharafuddin, director of the club, says that RISORT plans a series of programmes across the State to create awareness of these issues.

© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

Cadaver transplantation: ground realities

Cadaver transplantation: ground realities

Cadaver transplantation: ground realities
Harsha Deshmukh

Transplantation is considered the treatment of choice for many patients suffering from diseases resulting in End Stage Organ Failure. Its success continues to improve, creating an increase in the numbers and types of transplants. This increased demand has put a severe strain on the supply of organs. In India the Human Organs Transplant Act was passed in 1994, which recognised brain death paving the way for ‘cadaver’ transplantation. However, six years since the Act was passed, only a few cadaver transplants have been performed. The problem is at multiple levels.

Health professionals

Health professionals are uncomfortable with declaring brain death and hesitant to explain the concept to the patient’s families. Some general practitioners, who were called in by potential donor families, have advised against organ donation. Further, the definition of brain death is specified only in the context of the transplant law. Doctors often interpret this to mean that brain death should be declared only if the deceased’s organs will be donated. This linkage has created tremendous confusion. If we are to increase cadaver transplant activity it could be made mandatory to a) document brain death, b) request the family about organ donation and c) document the outcome.

The medical profession has not promoted cadaver transplants. Some nephrologists agree to transplant kidneys from unrelated living donors instead of suggesting a cadaver kidney. Another reason for the low donation rates could be the lack of sensitive communication skills of the doctor when making the request for donation. It needs time to explain clearly that death has occurred and that it is irreversible. The family needs to be given time to come to terms with death before making the request for organ donation. Choosing a private area to talk to the family, away from the bedside of the patient and the general waiting area also helps.

Society

Families are exposed to the idea of organ donation for the first time when a loved one is declared brain dead. It therefore becomes more difficult to give consent for organ donation. Awareness about organ donation should start early in schools and colleges. The media should spread the message by highlighting actual cases, thereby building confidence and helping in overcoming misconceptions in society like religion is against donation, or that organs are allocated with bias to class, religion, etc. In our social system the extended family is often involved in important decisions, and may overrule the immediate family’s agreement to donation. Some relative have asked for monetary compensation or waiving of hospital charges as a condition to the donation. From a purely utilitarian point of view this position cannot be totally rejected, but it must be remembered that the introduction of commercial considerations into a system built on altruism and solidarity could have a dissuasive effect and paradoxically produce a reduction in donations. The problem of getting consent to donation is further compounded as public confidence in transplantation has been harmed by the ‘kidney rackets’ that were prevalent in our country.

The time involved in the process of organ donation also becomes a deterrent, especially, in medico- legal cases. The case has to be reported to the nearest police station and after removal of organs taken for a post mortem. It would help if post mortems can be avoided in cases where the cause of death is not controversial, or done on a priority basis or in the hospital in which the organs are harvested.

It is important to note that donors’ relatives have been grateful for the opportunity to donate their loved one’s organs. Those not given the opportunity have regretted that their loss was not mitigated by something good out of the tragedy. Everyone in this position should receive comprehensible information to make an informed decision.

Patients

Patients who require transplantation treatment also have reservations. Many are unaware of the option of transplantation. Renal failure patients are looking for a living donor and are unaware about the availability of cadaver kidneys. The cost of surgery and post transplant drugs that have to be taken lifelong is very high. Government involvement in reducing cost of drugs and early enrollment to health insurance schemes can help to make this treatment accessible to a greater number. There have been very few cadaver transplants. So patients fear being the ‘guinea pigs’ and are hesitant to register. They ’shop’ for advice, resort to alternative therapies and in the bargain lose vital time, money and sometimes even their life. The unfortunate scenario has been that even in the rare cases when donor organs have been available there have been no recipients. For example a liver was removed from a donor in Mumbai and sent to Delhi for lack of a recipient when thousands of patients are dying of liver disease. Some of these problems can be overcome by a central body with a transparent protocol for putting patients on the waiting list and distributing organs. This body will require support at many levels – from doctors who identify donors and those who transplant organs, from families who donate organs and from patients waiting for organs. It will work only if people know that it is impartial and in society’s interest.

KANTI – Karnataka Nephrology & Transplant Institute

KANTI – Karnataka Nephrology & Transplant Institute

Patient Education…

What is Cadaver Transplant?

When a kidney transplant is performed using a kidney from a ‘brain-dead, heart-beating’ cadaver (dead person), the procedure is referred to as a cadaver transplant.

Cadaver transplant programs are well established in the West. Such a program has been started in India, too, but has a long way to go to become a viable alternative to a living donor program.

A cadaver kidney may take several years to procure. However, if you do not have living related donors, and you wish to register for a cadaver transplant, consult your nephrologists for details.

Dr S. Sahariah – Cadaver Transplant

Doctor S. Sahariah site

Cadaver Transplant

Shortage of organ for transplantation is the biggest challenge faced by the transplantologist all over the world to-day. There is more number of patients awaiting organ transplantation than the people who has successfully underwent transplantation. The best source of organ is the brain dead patient in hospital following severe head injury. Though number of such brain dead persons is very high but unfortunately the number of people willing to donate their organ after death are very few.

About 1,00,000 persons develop end stage renal failure in India every year, who can be benefited by transplantation. But only about 2000 live donor operations are done annually mostly due to non-availability of human kidneys. On the other hand about 1,00,000 patients with severe head injury die every year in various hospitals in the country whose organ like kidneys, liver, heart, lungs, pancreas, corneas etc. can be used for the purpose of transplantation. These types of organ donors are known as CADAVER DONORS. Mostly due to lack of public awareness the cadaver organ transplantation programme has not been very successful in most countries including India. By donating organs after death you can save many lives. Think about it, discuss with your family and friends, discuss in your local community meetings or any other forum and make people aware about value of organ donations after deaths. This is the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being.