Lack of organ transplant centres hits N-K patients hard

For Hungund farmer Fakirappa (42), arranging Rs 400 every week for dialysis at Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Hubballi is a herculean task. Though his wife is willing to donate her kidney to the sole bread winner of the family, Fakirappa is still not able to go in for the surgery.

For, the only government hospital in the state which performs kidney transplantation is in Bengaluru, a city which is not just far away from his village but also a place where he can’t afford post-operation expenses. While the surgery would cost less than Rs 1 lakh, he will have to bear post-operation cost of over Rs 1 lakh.

“I could have gone for the operation if there was a government hospital with this facility in North Karnataka,” Fakirappa says.

According to Health and  Family Welfare department, there are 36 institutes in the state that have permission to transplant kidney, liver and heart. But most of them are in either southern or coastal Karnataka. The KLES Hospital in Belagavi has such a facility in North Karnataka. Apart from the Prime Minister Super Speciality Yojana Hospital on Victoria Hospital campus in Bengaluru, all the other hospitals are private ones.

According to Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka as on July 29, as many as 2,533 patients are waiting for organ transplantation in the state, including 1,880 for kidney and 582 for liver transplantation. A good chunk of these patients are from North Karnataka. KIMS Nephrology Department Head Venkatesh Moger said travelling to hospitals in other regions is financially and physically unaffordable for both patients and their relatives.

This is one of the reasons why more people are not going in for organ transplantation, which is a better solution than regular dialysis. On a average, two to three patients are referred to Bengaluru for transplantation every month. However, most of them do not undergo kidney transplantation.

KIMS is among many hospitals that have sought permission to conduct live organ transplantation. But getting permission from the Authorising Committee is difficult, say heads of over 10 hospitals and medical colleges to whom Deccan Herald spoke to.

“We are already performing more complex surgeries than kidney transplantation. However still the Committee, citing requirement of two organ transplantation specialists in hospital is denying the permission," said SDM Hospital, Dharwad, Medical Superintendent Sathya Shankar.

The hospital has one organ transplantation specialist and there are several Bengaluru-based specialists who are willing to visit the hospital on demand. Even the Human Organ Transplant Act doesn’t specify the requirement of a second specialist to accord permission. The hospital had applied for organ transplantation centre in 2014. There are other hospitals too, which have not received any response from the Committee. “It has been one year since we applied for the facility, by paying a fee of Rs 10,000. But so far, there has been no response from the Committee. Authorities have not even come for inspection,” said Hubballi’s Tathwadarsha Hospital Managing Director Bharat Kshatri.