The Health department is in the process of developing a time-bound action plan for initiating liver transplants at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital.
A high-level meeting chaired by Health Minister Veena George here on Thursday suggested that preparations be made in a time-bound manner so that the transplant programme could get off the feet at the MCH. A liver transplant unit should be developed as a special division at the MCH, it was pointed out at the meeting.
Organ transplant surgeries put a huge economic burden on families. Liver transplants, especially, cost a huge amount and are currently performed only in private hospitals in the State. The government is attempting to offer these complex surgeries at Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam MCHs for the time being.
At Kottayam MCH
The Kottayam MCH successfully performed a live donor liver transplant last week. However, this transplant was done with full hand-holding from an experienced team of transplant surgeons from a major private hospital chain in Thiruvananthapuram.
It was pointed out at the meeting that a sustainable independent liver transplant programme in the public sector requires a lot of investment, in terms of equipment, consumables, trained faculty and dedicated ICU care support teams.
Tie-ups
The Health department has already accepted that in high-volume, busy tertiary hospitals like medical colleges, tie-ups with experts from institutions in the private sector will be necessary, at least in the initial phase, to get complex and intensive procedures like liver transplants off the ground. The MCHs are now allowed to take institution-level decisions to seek tie-ups from private institutions for major transplant procedures
The work on getting liver transplant programme off the ground had begun at the Thiruvananthapuram MCH early and separate operation theatres, liver transplant ICU and equipment have been readied. Human resource training for building a transplant team is also on.
Additional Chief Secretary (Medial Education) Asha Thomas, Director of Medical Education (DME) A. Ramla Beevi, Joint DME Thomas Mathew and heads of Medial and Surgical Gastroenterology, Anaesthesia departments at the Thiruvananthapuram MCH.
