Kidney transplants come to standstill
Live kidney transplants in the city have virtually come to a standstill in the city with doctors refusing to be part of this process till the state administration comes out with the guidelines that keep them away from the verification process.
The matter had come to head after the arrest of five doctors from Hiranandani Hospital in Powai after the local police had busted an illegal kidney donation racket. The police had stopped a live kidney transplant when they received information that a woman had posed as the wife of a businessman and had agreed to give her kidney for a certain amount.
Following the arrests, doctors in the city had said that they do not want to be part of any verification process and only want to focus on medical care. They had approached the state administration to create Standard Operating Procedures that do not hold the doctors responsible for the verification process.
According to Dr Umesh Khanna, consultant nephrologist, there are no live related kidney transplants happening for some time since the state government has not come out with the SOPs that keep the doctors out of the verification process. The reason why kidney specialists do not want to be part of the verification
process is that there can always be some fake documents to show the relationship between two persons. “And doctors are in no way trained to detect such fake documents and hence they do not want to be part of this process,” he pointed out.
Sources said that nephrologists and urologists had approached
the state government on this issue and a committee had been set up in this regard. The doctors had even given a list of their conditions to the state administration on this and had demanded that the new SOPs should include them. “This committee has already held one meeting and the process for approving such live related kidney transplants is still being framed,” sources said.
Another nephrologist, Dr Rajesh Kumar admitted that no live related kidney transplants are being carried out for some time and they are waiting for the SOPs to be framed by the administration. When asked about the patients who will suffer as a result of this situation, he said that they are being referred to public hospitals for their treatment. He admitted that there are many patients who are waiting for kidney transplants, but at the same time it is not right for doctors to suffer for no fault of theirs.
Medical sources said that the live related cases form the bulk of kidney transplants that take place in the city. “While cadaver transplants form about 10% of the transplants, it is the live related cases that form the remaining 90% of these cases,” said a senior surgeon. With these transplants virtually coming to a halt it is the patients who are having to suffer and the state administration does not seem concerned about them.
When asked about this, a senior government official said that they rules are still being framed and the process will take some time to get completed. When asked about the problems being faced by patients, he said that they will try to expedite the process so there is no further delay.