Maharashtra government signs MoU with air ambulance agency

There is good news for people who are waiting for organ donations. Most of the time, in order to transport organs from one place to another, inter-state air ambulance facilities are needed, the costs for which are often beyond the means of patients. Now, finally, the state government has signed a memorandum of understanding with an air ambulance agency that will be dedicated for organ transportation.

On January 20, dna had reported how exorbitant air ambulance fares led to the death of a patient who was waiting for a heart transplant. The story was about how chartered aircraft operators could have given a new lease of life to the patient on January 14, had it not been for their exorbitant fares.

When a 30-year-old woman was declared brain-dead in Bhuj, her family was willing to donate her organs. The patient in Mumbai was in need of a heart, but airline operators sought Rs13-14 lakh for transporting the cadaver organs from Bhuj to the city. Since the family could not afford this cost, the heart went dead as cadaver organs cannot be used four hours after a person's death.

Taking serious note of this incident, the state health department swung into action and decided to call a meeting of all the stakeholders concerned, including air-ambulance operators and hospitals that conduct organ transplants.

Acting on the dna report, the state health ministry on January 27 held a preliminary investigation at LTMG Sion hospital, which was attended by state health authorities, Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee officials, state health department authorities, representatives of four private hospitals – Fortis, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani, Global and Jupiter – and representatives from three aircraft operators, Sai Craft Ltd, Aviators Air Rescue and International Critical Care Air Transfer Team.

Dr Gauri Rathod, a nodal officer for Maharashtra's human organ transplant programme, had said at the investigation that initial findings had confirmed the need to have an aircraft dedicated for organ transportation. She had said that during the two-hour-long meeting, the aircraft carriers had confessed that on the day of the Bhuj episode, at least 50 aircraft carriers were busy operating flights to Tirupati since it was the Makar Sankranti period.

"With the number of intra- and inter-state transplants increasing and the Bhuj episode gaining attention, having a dedicated aircraft made sense in order to ensure that incidents such as this one are not repeated," Rathod said.

At present, the cost of a heart transplant procedure is between Rs20-22 lakh. If an air ambulance is used to transport the donor's heart from one state to another, then a patient has to shell out Rs7-10 lakh extra. This amount goes directly to the provider of the air ambulance.