City gets India’s second cadaver retrieval operation theatre at KEM

While speaking to HT, Dr Sujata Patwardhan, director incharge of regional and state organ and tissue transplant organisation, Mumbai, said that this will boost the overall organ donation programme

Mumbai Keeping in mind the acute shortage of specialist transplant surgeons capable of retrieving organs from brain-dead patients, India gets its second cadaver retrieval operation theatre in Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. The centre will be the first in the public sector in the country and it will train surgeons on organ retrieval and transplant procedures.

The centre will be the first in the public sector in the country and it will train surgeons on organ retrieval and transplant procedures (HT file photo)

While speaking to HT, Dr Sujata Patwardhan, director incharge of regional and state organ and tissue transplant organisation (ROTTO-SOTTO), Mumbai, said that this will boost the overall organ donation programme in the country. “We have observed that while the organ retrieval of brain-dead patients were common, because of poor training or lack of technical knowledge, many times the organ would be damaged. There was an acute need for a training centre in India and we are glad that the centre is finally starting in Mumbai,” she said.

She said they will begin with one workshop a month and start the training programme for Mumbai doctors first. “It will first be for the Mumbai doctors and then extend it to other parts of Maharashtra, followed by other states,” Dr Patwardhan said.

The Centre, which will be inaugurated on April 12, is said to boost organ donations in the city. It will also have a tissue retrieval training centre and laboratory. It is said to train more doctors on how to retrieve organs for transplant. One cadaver body can be used to train 30-34 doctors.

However, Dr Patwardhan said that the biggest challenge will be to get fresh cadaver for the programme. “We plan to begin the workshop with unknown dead bodies with police permission. We will also reach out to people via media to donate the body of their loved ones for the programme. We need fresh cadaver for the workshop. Right now, the centre has space to store two cadaver bodies,” she said. She added that the relatives can take the body for last rites after a month. “It is a good deed to help medical professionals learn. The cadaver body donation will help the society at large,” she said.

Welcoming the decision, Dr Somnath Chattopadhyay, head of hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplant at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital (KDAH), said that it will help the organ transplant programme penetrate the tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

“At present, the hospital that has the organ transplant programme, sends their surgeons for organ retrieval. We face challenges when the cadaver donor is in a hospital that is not connected well to an airport. A lot of time goes wasted in reaching the centre and retrieving the organ. Many times, we lose the organ too. If we have trained surgeons in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, they can retrieve the organ and send it back to us and save both time and organ,” he said.

Dr Hemant Pathare, heart transplant surgeon, Jaslok Hospital, said that the centre was long overdue and a much-needed boost for the country’s organ transplant programme. “It will train the urology surgeons, heart transplant surgeons, and liver surgeons on organ retrieval. This will be a step up for the organ transplant programme in the municipal set up too and will encourage more surgeons to take up the sub-speciality of organ transplantation,” he said.