Kidney transplant facility at Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences soon

LUCKNOW: Kidney transplant facility will soon start at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences.

Sources said, the infrastructure was ready and other formalities would take around a couple of weeks to be completed after which operations could be performed. “We are ready to operate,” said Prof Dipak Malviya, director of the institute.

The inspection of the institute’s specialised operation theatre, ICU and related facilities has been done. Once the service is started here, it would reduce the load upon institutes such as PGI.

“We would first go for related donor transplant,” said Prof Malviya. Since permission for transplant operation even in related donor needs a lot of formalities to be completed, the institute might go for its first operation by August end. If 5 operations are conducted at the Lohia institute in a month, that would cater to 60 patients in a year.

At present, transplant operations are available at the PGI in Lucknow and at any given time at least 100 patients await such an operation. Those who can afford corporate hospitals’ facilities go to other cities while those who cannot afford heavy medical bills wait for their turn to come. On an average, the patients requiring kidney transplant have to wait at least 8 months for their turn owing to a long list of patients. This period excludes the time taken for tests and concluding that a patient requires transplant. Until such patients are operated upon, they need to spend heavily on drugs and other procedures.