First Liver transplant in Public Sector Hosp hangs in balance

Despite government's claim that the first cadaver liver transplantation unit in the public sector will be done last December at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College hospital, it is still a non starter with undue delay in providing sufficient infrastructure and imparting proper training to the doctors. 

Even though the liver transplant programme was charted out two years ago, the unit is still at halfway point. An expert team that visited Medical College has noted that about 50 per cent of the facilities are yet to be provided.   

Training is yet to imparted to the surgeons, anaesthesiologists, radiodiagnosists, pathologists, nursing and other para medical staff, highly placed sources said. Though there was an agreement with a private hospital in Chennai to train the doctors, the sources said that there was much delay in giving training. The earlier decision was to give training of six months to specialists in a private hospital in Chennai and later it was cut short to six days, which was also hardly given,  the sources alleged. 

They point out that a dedicated ICU and recovery room has not be set up for Transplant. Apart from this, the unit is yet to  get proper high end equipment for conducting the transplant.  The infighting between surgical and medical units is said to be one of the reasons for the delay.  Apart from this, they also said that there were no willing patients. 

Though agreeing to some extent that the unit was not completely set up, Trivandrum Medical College Vice Principal and head of the Liver Transplant Unit Dr K R Vinayakumar said that high end equipment was yet to reach. ''But this is not a major thing as such equipment could be borrowed from KIMS as per an agreement with them,'' he said. Apart from this, he also noted taht the expert team that inspected the facility at the unit had suggested some modificatiuons in the ICU and the Recovery room, whiuch was now being done. 

source> The New Indian express 

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/445068/The-New-Indian-Express-Thiruvananthapuram/23-02-2015#page/4/1
http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/445134/The-New-Indian-Express-Kochi/23022015#page/4/1