The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, AUGUST 25, 2022
Awareness must be spread among people that the Odisha Government is offering monetary support for organ transplant operations like kidney and liver under the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY), said Prof. (Dr.) Umakant Satpathy, Additional Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET), Government of Odisha
Speaking at a seminar on “Organ donation and transplant’’ held at Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences here on Wednesday, Dr. Satpathy who is also the Nodal Officer of State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), informed that Odisha has taken many steps to popularize organ transplantation activities. While there are eight centres with transplant and retrieval of organs across the State, it has so far done 1,312 organ transplant surgeries.
As Odisha is registering 11,500 road accident cases every year out of which around 5,000 deaths are reported, with proper awareness and pledging we can harvest more organs so that people with end-stage ailments and in the need of organs could be of great help, he added.
At the hospital level, the Additional DMET also proposed brain stem death (BSD) awareness, coordination for organ harvesting, and transplant teams constantly in touch with SOTTO and above all, a mega IEC campaign across the State and local basis to raise public awareness and perception on organ donation as a single BSD certified person can save at least eight lives by donating his/her organs. He also called for better NGO coordination in the entire process as their role in organ donation and transplant has become crucial across the world.
Earlier, speaking on “Medical issues and challenges relating to organ donation and transplantation in India’’ Prof. (Dr.) YK Chawla, Chairman Academics KIMS spoke elaborately on how the process started in India under the leadership of Prof. Samiran Nundy at AIIMS New Delhi and now India has evolved a lot and 14 states are having SOTTO and there are five Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisations (ROTTOs) under the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation. Currently, India has 618 transplant centres and 104 non-transplant retrieval centres.
Associate Professor Nephrology KIMS Dr. Nikunj Kishore Rout informed that on July 13 this year KIMS had helped in harvesting two kidneys from a brain-dead paediatric patient, which were later successfully transplanted in two patients at a private hospital and both the recipients are doing well.”
Senior faculties of KIMS and hundreds of students attended the seminar and deliberated on medical, ethical, legal and related issues of various challenges and processes of organ transplantation.
