Cadaver organ transplants rare affair in govt hospitals

MADURAI: Tamil Nadu recently overtook Maharashtra to top the chart in cadaver organ donation. However, the southern state is still short of organs to be transplanted to needy patients. Data available with the Tamil Nadu Network for Organ Sharing reveals that as many as 3,375 people are looking for kidneys. Though, the right organs could be harvested from the dead, the task is easier said than done. While cadaver organ transplant is not uncommon in private hospitals, even the leading government hospitals in Tamil Nadu rarely conduct it, said C Anandaraj, a Madurai-based health activist.
In the last five years (from 1998 onwards) only 67 hearts, 30 lungs, 385 livers and 777 kidneys have been taken from dead people to be given to patients requiring transplant of these organs. Out of these cadaver organs harvested, only very few was utilised for poor patients who approached government hospitals. Most of them were transplanted to well-to-do patients at private hospitals which intensively promote cadaver organ harvest. Thus, they stand to gain from norms which say that donor hospital will get the priority in utilising cadaver organs. Government hospitals in the state lag behind in both cadaver organ harvest as well as transplant, said Anandaraj.
Anandaraj is the executive director of Equal Rights, an NGO which works for equal quality treatment for poor in government hospital on par with private counterparts. In this regard, he had even filed a plea at the Madurai bench of Madras high court recently.
Except a couple of government hospitals in Chennai, no other government hospital in the state has shown any interest in obtaining organs, especially kidney which is in great demand, Anandaraj said.
In fact, leading government hospitals like Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) in Madurai, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) in Trichy and Coimbatore Government Hospital do not have facilities for cadaver organ harvest or transplant. Only Stanley Medical College Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi General Hospital in Chennai have liver and heart transplant facilities. Both are government hospitals.
GRH is yet to conduct a single cadaver organ donation, said Anandaraj while sharing the data available with the Tamil Nadu Network for Organ Sharing. This poor record casts light on the hospital's inertia in promoting cadaver harvest when it treats hundreds of terminally ill patients.
Anandaraj said it is high time all premium government hospitals in the state had organ harvest and transplant facilities.