Patna AIIMS gets nod to begin kidney transplants

The approval comes almost three years after the AIIMS had, on October 8, 2021, moved a request to the state health department for grant of certificate of registration for kidney transplant.

Decks were cleared on Tuesday evening for the first human kidney transplant at Patna’s All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), with Bihar’s health department granting its approval to the procedure on a resident of Jehanabad district, officials said.

Patna AIIMS (HT file)

“We granted the no-objection certificate (NOC) today for the kidney transplant at AIIMS to the donor and recipient from Jehanabad,” said Dr Sunil Kumar Jha, director-in-chief, health services, who also heads the health department’s authorisation committee, which grants NOC for human organ transplant.

Dr Jha had sought a day’s time when this reporter asked him on Monday, a government holiday on account of Janmashtami, about the delay in grant of NOC for the first kidney transplant at AIIMS.

“There is nothing pending at our end now for grant of NOC regarding organ transplant,” said Dr Jha on Tuesday. He superannuates on August 31.

The approval comes almost three years after the AIIMS had, on October 8, 2021, moved a request to the state health department for grant of certificate of registration for kidney transplant. Though the certificate was granted to AIIMS on July 9 this year, the NOC came through on Tuesday, after the health department received the request for donor NOC on August 16, said state health officials.

“The work-up of the patient and the donor has been done... We will intimate soon about the transplant date,” said Dr Gopal Krushna Pal, executive director of AIIMS, Patna.

A six-member committee of the health department, headed by the then director-in-chief, health services, Dr Rakesh Chandra Sahay Verma, had first inspected the AIIMS on October 10, 2022, a year after its request seeking approval to begin kidney transplant procedure. The panel had then pointed out several shortcomings. Among them were lack of availability of dedicated full-time nephrologist, neurologist, neurosurgeon, renal transplant coordinator, trained nurses and technicians to manage the surgical facility (operation theatre), intensive care unit (ICU) and high dependency unit (HDU).

It also recommended that the AIIMS should have a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a certified laboratory centre for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching, and also another MoU with any kidney transplant centre for training its manpower and getting assistance in initiating kidney transplant as per the national organ transplant programme (NOTP).

It took the AIIMS almost 15 months to fill the gaps, after the health department communicated it the recommendations of the inspection committee on October 14, 2022. The institute wrote back to Pratyaya Amrit, additional chief secretary, health, on January 6, 2024, requesting for a re-inspection, saying it had addressed the deficiencies.

Subsequently, a five-member committee, headed by the then director-in-chief (administration), health services, Dr NN Ray was constituted on February 29 this year. The team inspected the AIIMS on April 4 and the certificate of registration for kidney transplant was granted on July 9.

The AIIMS will be the second in the government sector, after the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, to do kidney transplant procedure in Bihar.

Among the private sector hospitals, the Ruban, Medanta, Paras HMRI and the Apollo Spectra already have the permissions to carry out the procedure.