THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the government talks big things including air ambulance facility, the organ transplant system on the ground is appalling.
With registration for transplant centres being granted by Director of Medical Education (DME) mainly on the recommendations of doctors who have never performed a transplant in their life, there is a huge risk to people who shell out lakhs of rupees for organ transplant.
At the moment, a team comprising doctors from government medical colleges constituted by DME inspects the transplantation facilities and clears them for registration.
For instance, the registration for kidney transplantation centre is cleared by the team of urologists and nephrologists, liver transplantation centre by medical and surgical gastroenterologists and cardiac transplant by cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons along with forensic surgeons taken from various medical colleges.
"Our teams check facilities and infrastructure and see if they are proper. They may not have carried out organ transplantation but they are aware of the procedures. It may be difficult to get experts from outside for inspection and hence we bank on an internal team," said DME Dr K. Sreekumari. Experts, however, say the setting up of the team is the sole discretion of the DME, as per the law.
"The idea is to have the best in the field to ensure that registration is granted after effective inspection especially in the case of liver and cardiac transplant centres. It is not about physical verification of equipment and infrastructure," said a doctor.
Sources said there was no regular update from these centres whether surgeons are continuing with the institution or have left.
Since DME conducts the reassessment of registration after five years, there is no intermediate mechanism of inspection. There are registered centres which are yet to perform major transplants.
For instance, seven centres have registration for cardiac transplant but of the 15 transplants over the last three years, 13 were carried out by just one hospital.
Even Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Science and Technology (SCTIMST) which had obtained the license three months ago, is yet to carry out a single transplant.
Many of the centres are also blatantly violating the mandatory recommendations under the Organ Transplant Act that says each hospital which carries out transplant should put out details like number of transplants carried out, cost involved in each transplant and waiting list.
