KEM Hospital to get skin bank in New Year

King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, Parel, is all set to get a skin bank in the New Year. The skin bank will begin operations from January 5. This will be the second such facility in a municipal-run hospital in the city after Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Sion, where the bank started functioning in 2000

Mumbai: King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, Parel, is all set to get a skin bank in the New Year. The skin bank will begin operations from January 5.

KEM Hospital to get skin bank in New Year

This will be the second such facility in a municipal-run hospital in the city after Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Sion, where the bank started functioning in 2000.

Skin tissues and amniotic membranes donated by deceased people will be routed through the bank to patients with severe injuries like burns, road accidents and others that leave them in need of plastic surgery or skin grafting. Patients in public as well as private hospitals can access the skin and membrane, which will be available at concessional rates.

Dean Dr Sangeeta Ravat said a special room with all the necessary infrastructure and instruments has already been prepared.

Employees for the skin bank have been hired a week back. The team is now busy setting up the standard operating protocols (SOP). A test run will be done with a patient before the inauguration.

“Skin donation helps hold up as a temporary cover until the natural skin on the affected person grows back or their own skin can be used for the procedure. The same is the case with amniotic membranes that helps with the healing of wounds,” Dr Vinita Puri, head of the plastic surgery department of the hospital, said. Thus, donated skin can help tide over a crisis situation while saving lives, she added.

In 2000, the then head of the surgery department at Sion Hospital, Dr Madhuri Gore, had successfully advocated for the country’s first skin bank to be opened at the hospital. Thereafter, such banks were also opened in private hospitals. The bank at Airoli’s National Burns Centre came about in 2009 and much later at Byculla-based Masina Hospital in 2020. An amniotic membrane bank is running at Wadia Hospital in Parel and a tissue bank in Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel.

Dr Puri said that KEM Hospital receives a big number of patients requiring plastic surgery due to injuries or accidents, who will benefit a lot from the ready availability of skin. “We will also be able to help out underprivileged patients from other government hospitals at very affordable prices. Private hospitals with such requirements can also approach us,” she said.