Coming up: First govt organ transplant facility in Kozhikode
KOZHIKODE: The country’s first exclusive organ transplant super speciality hospital in the government sector is all set to come up in Kozhikode. The facility is expected to offer services for less than 40% of the expenses involved in an organ transplant surgery in private hospitals, health department officials said.
The land acquisition for the project has been completed and the tendering process for construction activities is scheduled to begin shortly, the officials said. Though the state government had given its nod to the project a few years back, the Covid outbreak delayed the entire process.
The `500-crore hospital, inspired by the Miami Transplant Institute, will come up on around 20 acres of the leprosy hospital in Chevayur, they said.There will be more than 150 expert doctors and 800 nursing staff and other technical staff at the 500-bed hospital. The government also plans 22 super speciality courses there.
Air ambulance and helipad facilities will also be available for fast transportation of organs, the officials said. Training and research centres will be the other highlights of the project. “The government plans to give the services for less than 40% of the expenses involved in an organ transplant surgery. As many as 235 organ transplant surgeries were reported in the state in the last five years, and most of them were done in private hospitals,” they said.
“It is a fact that most transplant surgeries in the country are done in private hospitals,” said Dr Manoj G K, a retired transplant surgeon from Government Medical College. “The facilities at private hospitals are not available to common people due to the high expenses. So it will be wonderful for the state to have a government hospital exclusively for organ transplants,” he said.
According to government statistics, an estimated two lakh patients die of liver failure or liver cancer annually in India, of which about 10-15% can be saved with a timely liver transplant. Hence, giving awareness to the public about the importance of organ donation is also crucial, he said.