Director of Health Service (DHS) prepared new standard operating procedure (SOP)
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Mumbai: In Mumbai, about 4000 patients who are suffering from severe diseases of kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and pancreas are waiting for organ donation. But the Corona pandemic has resulted in a decline in organ donations.
Organ transplantation is the only way to save the lives of patients suffering from serious illnesses, but due to the corona epidemic, this work has been hampered a lot. Only 10 cadaver donations were possible between March and July this year in Mumbai as compared to 33 cadaver donations last year.
The above data from Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee, (ZTCC) clearly shows that there has been a decline of around 70% in cadaver donations. In the Corona period, the recipient did not get the organ of the infected person nor did he have an infection during the entire process of transplantation. The Directorate of Health Department and ZTCC have also formulated the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for this purpose.
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“We are fighting an enemy which is not visible and till now no medicine is found to fight corona. It is the need of the hour that we have to change our SOPs. We are the only ZTCC in the entire country to have created such an SOP which is quite safe,” said doctor SK Mathur, president ZTCC.
Further he said, “Now people need to come forward for organ donation and others will have to give new life or else many people will die from severe disease of liver, heart and kidney, not corona disease.”
Dr. Bharat Shah, a member of ZTCC and a kidney transplant surgeon said that “we were doing a very good job in the first organ donation of Corona. My appeal to the people is that people who are losing their loved ones due to misfortune can by deciding to donate organs save the lives of others in this corona period.”
New SOPs with Corona precautions
* It will be compulsory to take a donor (brain dead person) swab test, chest city scan and history.
* Donor and family history will be taken to ascertain whether they were infected with Corona? Or whether cured after getting corona infected and has completed 28 days, and then only his organ will be taken.
SOP for Hospitals
* It is mandatory to have a separate transplant team. There should be regular screening of the doctor, nurses, ward boys, ambulance drivers, sweepers etc.
* If any team member associated with the work of transplantation is symptomatic or comes positive then it will be mandatory to keep him out of the team for 28 days. He only will return to the team after recovering fully.
*Organ transplantation patients should be kept in a separate ward in the hospital. So that there is no risk of infection from other patients.
Twenty-nine infection free transplants.
Even though there have been 10 cadaver donations in Mumbai since March to July, 29 organs were received from these have been successfully implanted to the needy patients following the new SOP. The good thing was all these transplants were performed free of corona infection.
A total of 39 hospitals are registered for transplantation in Mumbai, but currently only transplantation is only carried out in 13 hospitals. 19 hospitals have decided not to undergo transplantation. While 6 hospitals have not taken any decision yet.
A ZTCC official said that many hospitals are also treating Covid patients these days, so neither the hospital nor the patients want to take risks.
Donors should be patient as during normal days, the entire process of organ transplantation was completed in one and a half days, but now a new SOP has been made, keeping in view the safety of the recipient. This entire process also takes from two and a half days. In such a situation, Donor’s family should be patient and do not pressurize the hospital or JTCC to work immediately. Family’s patience can give new life to others.-By Vikas Nag
