THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Medical experts have rubbished the allegation that a delay in conducting kidney transplantation resulted in the death of a patient at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital. Various studies showed that a kidney harvested from a donor can be preserved up to 44 hours before performing the transplantation on the receiver. It took three hours to transport the kidney from Kochi to Thiruvananthapuram and the surgery was performed three hours later on Sunday.
The suspension of two senior doctors of nephrology and urology departments for the delay and lack of coordination has sparked angry responses from doctors. It is likely that the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT) would intervene in the matter and issue a statement clarifying the facts behind the transplantation procedures.
Dr Chacko Jacob, a pioneer in renal transplantation in the country and former head of the department of nephrology in Christian Medical College, Vellore, in an interaction with nephrologists on social media, said the allegations raised were baseless.
“This playing to the media and public on the part of the health minister does not bode well for health services in Kerala,” said Dr Chacko who has been closely involved in kidney transplantation since 1972. “Once a kidney is harvested, it can be preserved for several hours even without machine perfusion. I have personally used a kidney in Australia 48 hours after retrieval.
Hence, a delay of four hours after reaching Thiruvananthapuram is of no consequence. The argument that some persons, not from the transplant team, received the organ in the hospital is of no significance as the organ was not misplaced. The recipient’s family has not expressed any dissatisfaction on the way things were done. The family admitted that they were the ones who pressed for the surgery,” said Dr Chacko.
A senior doctor in Thiruvananthapuram MCH said the preparations for the procedure were well coordinated. “We did not go down to collect the organ as it was expected that the two doctors present in the vehicle would bring it upstairs. But the box containing the organ was snatched away from them by a group arranged by the ambulance driver. They only took the video of the unnecessary run in the hospital,” said the doctor.