Dr Avinash Supe, dean of KEM Hospital and director of major civic hospitals, said, “We are happy that cadaver donations have finally picked up in public hospitals.
Cadaver donation at Mumbai's public hospitals picked up after a long hiatus as the city saw five such cases in last one year. The poor cadaver donations in public hospitals has been a bone of contention among organ transplant experts as they see more number of accident cases, which increases the chances of brain dead patients.
Dr Avinash Supe, dean of KEM Hospital and director of major civic hospitals, said, “We are happy that cadaver donations have finally picked up in public hospitals. At KEM, we have formed 'WhatsApp detection programme' to identify brain dead patients. This is the brain child of Dr Sujata Patwardhan, urologist and secretary of Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC), where all the doctors concerned are in touch and update in case there is a brain dead patient under their care.”
He said that although tertiary care hospitals like KEM sees more accident cases, appointing a counsellor has helped. “We have to consider two things. One, that the patients don’t feel that they are not treated properly, and second, they should not feel there is conflict of interest as their families come from poor economic background and may not have much knowledge. Having a counsellor has helped bridging this problem of explaining to the family of a brain dead and getting their consent for cadaver donation,” said Supe.
He said that in last one year, KEM hospital alone had 3 cadaver donors. “It is a pilot project that we started in April and since then there has been three consents out of which two cadaver donations came through,” said Patwardhan. She added that the group also has doctors from Chennai and Pune. “On daily basis, there is an update on the group. Taking corrective measures has become easy because of this,” said Patwardhan. She added that soon the system will be replicated in other public hospitals too.
She said that last year, the public hospitals had picked up on notifying brain dead. “Notifications of brain dead patients have increased in public hospitals which is a good sign. We had as many as 57 brain dead notifications but in most of the cases, the cadaver donor was not suitable for organ transplant,”said Patwardhan.
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