Andhra Pradesh at Sixth Place in Organ Donation

 Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh has secured the sixth place in organ donation in the country for 2025.

Health minister Satya Kumar Yadav disclosed this here on Tuesday, stating that the national organ and tissue transplantation organisation working under the central ministry of health was the apex body to implement the national organ transplant programme.

The apex body announced the list of donation organs state-wide, he said, and added that the Jeevandan established in 2015 was taking up widespread awareness campaigns on organ donation among the people in the state.

Following recent direction from the high court on surgeries for organ transplant in government hospitals, the minister said they had taken up a review and enhanced the number of hospitals for organ transplant surgery, including KGH and Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences, Visakhapatnam; the government hospitals in Guntur and Kurnool, the Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati; AIIMS in Mangalagiri; the Padmavathi children heart centre, Tirupati; the Kidney research centre and super speciality hospital in Palash and the government hospital in Vijayawada.

Jeevandan programme state coordinator Dr K. Rambabu informed the minister that a few more hospitals located in Kakinada, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Ongole, Anantapur, YSR Kadapa and Tirupati were given permission to collect organs from the brain dead persons and transport them to other hospitals for transplantation to the needy patients.

Meanwhile, health officials informed the minister that eight kidneys and a liver were harvested from the brain dead persons and transplanted in KGH, VIMS in Visakhapatnam and at government hospitals in Guntur and Kurnool.

In the last two months, 64 organs were harvested from 18 brain dead persons and transplanted to 64 persons giving them a new lease of life, they said.