Pune lags behind in giving the gift of life

Even as nearly 300 patients in Pune are on the waiting list for kidneys, the low rate of cadaver donations in the city poses a grim picture for renal patients in need of transplants.

This year, only one cadaver donation has taken place in the city which took place at Command Hospital in March. With an average of less than eight cadaver transplants per year (if figures of previous years is considered), chances of finding a kidney donated by the family of a brain-dead patient are dismal.

The low rate of cadaver donations leave renal patients with no choice, but look elsewhere for donors.

According to transplant coordinators, if a kidney patient is unable to find a donor within his/her family, they have to wait for several years to find a cadaver kidney, and this wait might prove to be fatal in some cases.

Transplant social workers in city hospitals claim that the city lags in cadaver donations due to lack of awareness about organ donation and government inaction to motivate human organ donation.

“Many a time when we approach families, they are not even aware of cadaver donations and that is why many are not open to it. Is the responsibility of spreading awareness also on hospitals? These days there are so many kidney patients, and some of them are so young and productive, that cadaver donation seems to be the only answer to this public health problem. The government must think seriously about starting a sustained campaign on cadaver donations,” said Surekha Joshi, transplant coordinator at Ruby Hall Clinic.

Another transplant coordinator pointed out how diseases like tuberculosis, AIDS and even smoking that are concerned with public health have sustained national awareness campaigns.

“Take eye donation and pulse polio campaigns for example, the government roped in celebrities and the campaigns are so successful that we are not only polio free, but are also crossing our eye donation targets. What we want to know is why just eye donation, why cannot the government design campaigns to donate kidneys, liver, skin, etc, which can save so many lives,” the coordinator said. Vrunda Pusadkar, transplant coordinator at Jehangir Hospital, pointed out some rare cases where the hospitals did find donors, but ran into other hurdles.

“We do not have cross-matching facility in Pune which is basically a test to see if the donor’s and the recipient’s profiles are compatible. Precious time is lost in getting reports from Mumbai. Besides, there are a lot of legalities involved in harvesting organs that we need to follow,” she said.