Nagpur: A 34-year-old man from Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat recently received a kidney transplant from his 57-year-old father, who had an attitude of sacrifice for his child. The patient was suffering from end-stage renal failure and had been on dialysis for a year. The transplant was covered under the PM and CM Fund of Madhya Pradesh, and the surgery was performed at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Nagpur on Tuesday. This was made possible within three years of the state-of-the-art infrastructure being set up at Mihan-SEZ.
Dr Sanjay Kolte, a well-known urologist, led and guided the AIIMS team, which has only one urologist. The institute has recruited four consultant specialists, including Dr Kolte, for the kidney transplant programme, with a target of performing at least four organ transplants every month.
The post-operative care will be handled by the in-house nephrology department team, as stated by Dr M H Rao, the Executive Director (additional charge) of AIIMS Nagpur. The aim is to establish AIIMS Nagpur as a prime transplant centre, said Dr Manish Shrigiriwar, Medical Superintendent.
The hospital had faced several hurdles and challenges, from finding experienced urologists to obtaining approvals to start the super-speciality service. After facing high rates of refusal from shortlisted candidates to join the urology department on a full-time basis, the hospital had to seek assistance from private doctors. The much-awaited transplant surgery was performed in the vacant cardiology operation theatre (OT) after the designated OT didn’t meet sanitation requirements. The hospital now plans to initiate heart, liver, and lung transplant programmes under the same model without waiting for full-time faculty recruitment under respective departments.
AIIMS Nagpur’s first kidney transplant also revived the programme in government hospitals after the lone centre at Super Speciality Hospital (SSH) at GMCH was shut following the Covid pandemic. A kidney transplant typically costs around Rs 12 to 15 lakh in a private hospital. Many patients are on the waitlist under the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) and may have to register in far-off cities where government hospitals run transplant centres.
According to doctors, patients who cannot afford the costly surgery often pass away without timely intervention. Thus, the establishment of a transplant centre was essential at a government hospital in Central India. AIIMS recently conducted its first Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) and received the nod from the government for the deceased donor organ retrieval centre.
