The final report of the three-member State health inquiry committee on the kidney racket busted at Dr. L.H. Hiranandani Hospital last month will be submitted only after two days. Officials had earlier indicated that the report will be submitted on Monday, but said that while work on the report is complete, it will be finalised over the next two days.
Dr. Mohan Jadhav, director, Directorate of Health Services (DHS), confirmed to The Hindu that the report hadn’t been submitted. Sources in the DHS said it took the committee time to complete the report as the hospital’s transplant coordinator Nilesh Kamble, who was arrested and later released on bail, had made contradictory statements. “Statements recorded of all the other hospital officials had to be revisited. The report is complete, but has not yet been put in a document format,” a source at the DHS said.
Sources also said that the panel has found serious lapses in the paperwork of Hiranandani Hospital. At least three more transplants carried out at the hospital are under the scanner. The three-member panel had submitted its preliminary report earlier, but its probe was incomplete as some key interviews, particularly the one with Dr. B.K. Kadam, assistant director with the DHS, who was part of Hiranandani Hospital’s local authorisation committee, was pending. He appeared before the panel on August 16.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jadhav said the first meeting to formulate the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for transplants was held with Health Minister Dr. Deepak Sawant. Sources said all the 16 members of the committee that the State has set up to formulate the SOP attended the meeting. “It was the first meeting and a second one will be convened soon. Primary discussions on streamlining transplants were held,” said a source in the health ministry.
The committee will lay down the SOP to create an online database of organ donors and for verification of documents and will have the mandate to formulate a policy framework to facilitate creation of green corridors to transport organs. It will also make recommendations to the government to make the organ transplantation process swifter.
