GHs await infra to begin liver transplants

After an MOU was signed between a private hospital and State Health Department to perform liver transplant recently in several government hospitals and train healthcare officials for the same recently, the hospital authorities say that infrastructure requirements need to be met before the project takes off.

Rela Hospital and state health department signed an MOU earlier this month to conduct liver and bone marrow transplants at several government hospitals including Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital, Institute of Child Health, Madurai Government Medical College and Hospital, and Coimbatore Government Medical College and Hospital.

Currently, only Stanley Medical College and Hospital has the facilities and infrastructure to conduct liver transplantation and training of doctors. “We have transplantat unit and a team of doctors already, and we’d continue the same in future. The training for more number of doctors and staff members is to begin soon,” said Dr P Balaji, dean, Stanley Medical College and Hospital.

Hospital authorities of respective medical college hospitals have communicated on the infrastructure requirements to the state health department officials through the Directorate of Medical Education. They’re awaiting approval.

“It will take about 2-3 months to establish the required infrastructure to begin transplantation at pre-selected hospitals. Training of the staff will begin immediately after these requirements are met. The project will help a lot of people in the public sector and reduce the burden of liver transplants being conducted in a few GHs,” explained Dr Narayana Babu, Director of Medical Education.