New Delhi: RML hospital here conducted its first-ever multi-organ retrieval on Tuesday night. A 25-year-old patient, an accident victim was brought to the Centre-run hospital on Monday and was declared brain dead on Tuesday, following which, the family decided to donate his organs at the hospital. The retrieval process was completed ar-ound 4 am on Wednesday.
While scores of brain dead cases are brought to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, not a single retrieval had taken place at the hospital till date. The other two Centr-al hospitals — AIIMS and Safdarjung — in the city, already conduct retrieval and transplant activity. A liver, two kidneys, and a heart were retrieved from the patient.
“One kidney was used in RML only while one kidney and heart was sent to AIIMS and the liver was sent to Max Hospital,” said an official from National Organ Transplant and
Tissue Organisation (NOTTO), which coordinated the retrieval and transplant. The body is the nodal networking agency, which coordinates procurement, allocation, and distribution of organs in the country. Around five-lakh Indi-ans die waiting for an organ every year. The perpetual problem of shortage of organs has led to an ever-increasing demand-supply gap, even though every person who dies naturally or is declared brain dead is a potential donor.
“We had held several discussion with the hospital to start retrieval of organs since it is one of the three Central hospitals in the city. In fact, in a meeting with Union health secretary some months ago, government hospitals we-re asked why are they not conducting organ retrie-val despite getting so many brain dead cases. We are happy that it has finally happened at RML,” the official said.
Delhi lags far behind in terms of organ donation when compared with other cities like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Mahara-shtra. Meanwhile, Dr V.K. Tiwari, medical superintendent, RML hospital, said that organ retrieval couldn’t happen in the past due to various factors.
“This has to be a voluntary exercise. We keep motivating the family members but sometimes they do not wish to donate. Also, not all organs are healthy and cannot be transplanted. We are trying our best and shall conduct more retrievals in future,” he said.
