Heart transplants raise hopes of patients waiting for organ donors

A Nashik-resident requiring a heart transplant was first advised by his doctor to visit Chennai. But today, he called us to check if he can undergo a transplant in Mumbai which is closer,” said Dr S Narayani, medical director at Fortis Hospital, Mulund, where the two successful heart transplants were conducted recently.

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A day after a 29-year-old underwent the second heart transplant, doctors treating him said he is stable and will be under close observation for another day. “He will remain at the hospital for at least three weeks more. Currently, he is in the intensive care unit,” said Dr Anvay Mulay, cardiovascular surgeon. The state ZTCC is spread across Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad.

In Mumbai alone, apart from two patients awaiting a heart donation, there are 2,777 wait-listed for kidney transplant and 198 for a liver transplant. In total, 2,977 patients are waiting for organ donation in a city witnessing close to 90,000 deaths every year, as per civic health department data.

Across the state, data gathered from 1995 until June 2015, indicated that 8,607 people have undergone kidney transplant of which 8,061 were live and only 6.3 per cent (546) were cadaver donations. A cadaver donation takes place when a patient is brain stem dead though other vital organs continue to work. Similarly, under liver transplants there were 352 donations of which while 202 were from live donors, 150 were cadaveric donations.

“More awareness on organ donations is required in brain stem death cases. If the donations from deceased patients increases, there will be no need of taking an organ or part of an organ away from live people,” said Aniruddh Kulkarni, transplant coordinator attached with Jupiter hospital.

With the awareness on cadaver organ donation gradually picking up, three more hospitals have applied for getting authorization to conduct transplant with the Directorate of Health Services (DHS). The three are MGM hospital, Kamothe, Ruby Clinic Hall, Pune, and Sir HN Reliance Foundation hospital, Mumbai. Sir HN hospital has also applied for conducting heart transplant. So far, the DHS has 107 hospitals registered for conducting organ transplants across Maharashtra of which currently only seven can conduct a heart transplant. “We feel more hospitals will now want to register themselves for heart transplants,” Dr Kempi Patil, Assistant Director at DHS, said.

tabassum.barnagarwala@expressindia.com