Mumbai: The 4 tertiary care hospitals run by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) hospitals are set to begin full-fledged organ transplant programme together with coronary heart and lung transplants.

At current, KEM Hospital and BYL Nair Hospital run the kidney transplant programme. KEM Hospital additionally has the hand transplant and liver transplant programme.

Dr Sudhakar Shinde, further municipal commissioner, BMC, mentioned, “We have in principle decided to revive all the locations where organ transplant was going on in our hospitals. and to start in other hospitals. I am going to have an institution-wise meeting next week.”

He mentioned they are going to be taking the assistance of the town’s organ transplant specialists working in personal set-ups.

“We have a policy of private hospital doctors working with us on an honorary basis. They can help us set up the organ transplant programme in our institutions and can teach our students and strengthen the programme,” mentioned Dr Shinde, who added that they’re but to work out the financial a part of every transplant.

“A liver transplant in a private hospital will be close to ₹35 lakh. In KEM hospital, it is close to ₹5 lakh. The cost of a heart transplant in a private hospital is close to ₹30 lakh. Having an organ transplant programme in a civic hospital will be a boon to many poor patients. We have good doctors and infrastructure can be strengthened,” mentioned a civic well being official.

While coronary heart and lung transplant is now generally completed in personal hospitals within the metropolis, it was in 1968 that Dr PK Sen and his crew from KEM Hospital, Parel, carried out two transplants with restricted success, barely six months after South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard carried out the world’s first coronary heart transplant.

After this, there was an extended hole and end-stage coronary heart sufferers needed to go to hospitals within the southern a part of India for coronary heart transplant. After 1986, coronary heart transplants had been began in Fortis Hospital, Mulund in 2015.

A BMC well being official mentioned aside from coronary heart and lung transplants, in addition they plan to have small gut, pancreas, and liver transplant programmes too.

Dr Hemant Pathare, coronary heart and lung transplant surgeon at Jaslok Hospital mentioned up to now they’d approached the company. “It is good that the additional municipal commissioner plans to have a full-fledged organ transplant programme. We are ready to train the team of doctors at the civic-run hospitals. In the past, we have approached the corporation with the hope that at least one of the four tertiary care should start heart transplant programme. However, we did not get a response.”

Pathare added that having an organ transplant programme can even assist to select up organ donations in civic hospitals.

“Ideally, municipal hospitals should have high donor rate but almost all the organ donations are happening in private hospitals. We need intensivists to pick up brain-dead patients and social workers to counsel the relatives for organ donation. However, because of the high footfall of patients and workload, the team is not able to manage. We need a dedicated team for the same,” he mentioned.