CHENNAI: Patients awaiting organ transplants in Chennai’s government hospitals may have to wait longer as doctors are hesitant to resume such surgeries amid the high-risk Covid atmosphere.
Though the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) released regulations in June for hospitals that wish to resume organ transplants, the doctors are not willing to take the risk, saying the pandemic is not over yet. The surgeries were stopped in March when the pandemic struck.
Senior surgeons and doctors from Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Kilpauk Medical College Hospital and the Stanley GH are reluctant to resume transplant operations as various factors, such as determining the Covid status of donors, the risk of recipients getting infected during or after transplant and ensuring a safe atmosphere for the surgery, need to be taken into account.
Dr N Gopalakrishnan, Director of Institute of Nephrology, RGGGH, said resuming renal transplant fully depends on the Covid trend in the near future. “There are challenges in cleaning the donors and getting swab results. Also, it is risky to perform surgeries in a high-viral atmosphere,” he said.
‘7K waiting for various organs in TN’
Gopala krishnan said, “The patient, too, is vulnerable to infection post-surgery as they would be on immune-suppressants.” He added that there is, of course, a demand for renal transplants, but the effectiveness of surgery in such an atmosphere and safety of patients need to be considered. “Covid cases have come down now, but we have to wait and see,” he added. While about 55-75 transplants are done at the RGGGH every year, this year, only 20 transplants had been done till March.
A senior doctor with the Stanley GH said the donors’ list is ready and doctors are also ready to perform the surgery, but the atmosphere is not conducive. “We are observing a second wave across the globe in various countries. So, we have to wait and see if cases further go down in the city. We can’t put patients and doctors at risk,” said the doctor. The doctor added that if the body of the patient rejects the organ, then the recovery becomes harder, especially during these Covid times.
Dean of KMCH, Dr P Vasanthamani, said the hospital mainly does only skin and renal transplants, but the Covid situation has put them on hold. “The doctors are involved in Covid treatment and it can’t be said for sure when transplants will begin,” she said. H owever, some private hospitals in the city have resumed organ transplants months ago and doctors say it is picking up pace.
Dr Rajnikanth, Clinical Lead in Liver Transplantation at Gleneagles Global Health City, said they had resumed operations in May but it started picking up pace only in November. “As of November, we have performed about 80 per cent of the transplant surgeries we annually do in normal times. Surgeries were lesser during the initial stages of the pandemic, but it eventually picked up,” said Rajnikanth. Dr Gomathy Narasimhan, Senior Liver and Renal Transplant Surgeon with Dr Rela Institute and Medical Care, said transplants have been done since May and the pace is gradually picking up.
“We have done close to 60 per cent of the transplants that we do annually in normal times. The outcomes too have been good,” she said. According to data from TRANSTAN, close to 7,000 recipients are on the waiting list for various organs in Tamil Nadu. Among them, 5,810 are awaiting kidney donors, while 468 are waiting for liver transplants. The number of organ donors, too, has been increasing annually, with kidney being the largest donated organ.