Corporate hospitals dominate organ donation and transplantation in Telangana

Since 2013, over 95% of cadaver organ donations, transplants have been undertaken at corporate hospitals

Hyderabad: While the State-run Jeevandan organ donation has been a ray-of-hope for desperate patients needing donor organs to survive, the initiative, to a large extent has now become an exclusive domain of corporate hospitals in Hyderabad, with Government hospitals struggling to keep-up with the well-oiled and highly motivated transplant departments developed in private sector.

Saddled by numerous difficulties, the State-run hospitals, especially in Hyderabad have not been able to take-up cadaver organ donation and transplantation in large numbers, although they continue to provide living-related organ transplantation services, which are limited in availability of matching donor organs.

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Since the launch of Jeevandan organ donation initiative in 2013, more than 95 percent of the cadaver organ donations and transplant surgeries have been undertaken at corporate hospitals, with almost all of them located in and around Hyderabad.

So far (since 2013), a total of 1447 individuals have been declared as brain dead from whom, the Jeevandan initiative has been able to raise 5472 cadaver donor organs. However, out of the 1447 individuals, only 42 persons were declared as brain dead by Government hospitals while the rest of the 1405 organ donors were from private hospitals.

Moreover, out of the 42 organ donors, a total of 32 were from Nizam’s Institute of Medial Sciences (NIMS), which is a quasi-government health care facility that provides paid health care services, 9 organ donors were from Osmania General Hospital (OGH) and one from Gandhi Hospital (GH). In effect, in the last one-decade, state-run government hospitals like OGH and GH have been able to declare only 10 brain dead donors.

Private hospitals dominate:

Major super-specialty private hospitals in Hyderabad including Apollo Hospitals, Yashoda Hospitals, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Care Hospitals, AIG Hospitals and Kamineni Hospitals conduct maximum number of organ donations and transplant surgeries in Hyderabad. Not only have they invested heavily (financial) in developing an ecosystem of organ transplantation, including state-of-the-art infrastructure to conduct transplant surgeries, corporate hospitals have dedicated teams and organ transplantation departments. Since they are the first to declare patients as brain dead, they get first access to donor organ.

Government hospitals:

One of the biggest roadblocks for government hospitals like Kakatiya Medical College, OGH or Gandhi Hospital, which receive the maximum number of brain dead trauma victims in their emergency departments, is infrastructure and trained manpower. The departments of neurology, neuro-surgery (which declare brain dead) and supporting medical infrastructure needed for brain dead declaration have not been fully developed in government hospitals.

Central transplant centre at Gandhi Hospital hit by inordinate delays:

The state-of-the-art centralized organ transplant centre, proposed to be taken-up at Gandhi Hospital has been hit by inordinate delays. A project conceived at a cost of more than Rs 30 crore, the Centralized State Transplant Centre was supposed to boost the organ transplantation in government hospitals. However, the initiative is now hit be delays and it will take at least 6 to 8 months to be completed.

Top private/Govt hospitals and Organ donations:

Yashoda Hospitals, Secunderabad (258), KIMS, Secunderabad (275), Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills (177), Yashoda Malakpet (156), Gleneagles Hospitals (97), Kamineni LB Nagar (90), Yashoda Somajiguda (72), Gleneagles Aware Hospitals, LB Nagar (68), Care Banjara Hills (39), NIMs (32), KIMS Kondapur (20), Continental Hospitals (23), Sunshine Hospitals, Secunderabad (18), Medicover Hitec City (14), OGH (09), AIG Hospitals, Hitec City (08), Care Nampally (05), Gandhi Hospital (01).