KOTTAYAM: During the previous LDF government’s tenure, then health minister KK Shailaja had taken an unprecedented decision. She sanctioned a one-year special leave to Dr R S Sindhu, a gastroenterology surgeon at the Government Medical College hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, to join KIMS Hospital, a private institution, to get training in liver transplant surgeries. After completing the training, she was posted at Government MCH in Kottayam to start a gastroenterology surgery department here last April.
Before completing 10 months in her new workstation, Dr Sindhu successfully performed the first-ever liver transplant surgery in Kottayam MCH, which is also the second such surgery in the government sector in Kerala. For Dr Sindhu, who started her life’s battles at the age of three when polio paralysed her left leg, challenges have always been a part of her life. Two days after the liver transplant on Subeesh, 40, a native of Velur in Thrissur, Dr Sindhu is happy that both the patient and the donor, who is Sueesh’s wife Pravija, are regaining health post the surgery.
Dr Sindhu told TNIE the most difficult challenge before her was removing a vital organ like liver from a live body and grafting it on another person. “It was a major surgery for the donor as nearly 55% of the organ was removed from a healthy person. Moreover, we don’t have any alternative system to transfer the functions of the liver while we remove a part of it. The first task before us is to ensure life of the donor, who is a healthy person, coming forth to save the life of another one. We have to take utmost care to avoid any difficulties and morbidities for that person in future,” she said.
She added that grafting the organ on a new person is also a challenging task as it needs to get adjusted with a new system. “We need to observe the patient every minute after the grafting till we ensure that the surgery is successful,” she said. Dr Sindhu added that conducting a liver transplant within 10 months after the formation of the department was a major achievement for the hospital.
“We had made all arrangements for the transplant within a limited period of time. It was obviously a result of the team work. We got tremendous support from inside and outside the hospital including from hospital superintendent Dr T K Jayakumar, Ministers V N Vasvan and Veena George and former minister K K Shailaja,” she said.
Dr Sindhu also pointed out the support from the KIMS Health group, which sent a team from its Thiruvananthapuram unit to help in the procedure. Earlier, the hospital authorities under the aegis of Dr Sindhu imparted training to the staff members to equip them for participating in the procedure. “We could conduct first liver transplant surgery almost free of cost as the hospital development society bore the entire expense as it was the first surgery being performed at the Kottayam MCH. However, in future, we need to include liver transplant surgeries under schemes like Karunya,” she said.