Chennai: With 4,992 organs having been harvested so far, from 895 donors, Tamil Nadu was recently felicitated for best performance in Organ Transplantation.
Though awareness of organ donation is on the rise in the state, knowledge about donating hands is still lacking. With around 100 people on the waiting list, the Hand Transplant unit of the Hand Institute at Stanley Medical College and Hospital is yet to start functioning due to the lack of any donations.
Doctors blame the lack of awareness to be the leading factor for the same.
“We haven’t received any donations as yet. We had a meeting with those on our waiting list who have already been amputated and discussed the existing issues with them. We have also been holding awareness programmes to educate the public about the importance of hand donations,” said Dr Ramadevi, Head of the Department, Hand Institute, Stanley Hospital.
With traditional beliefs being a dominating factor in the country, burying or cremating a body with a missing part is considered unacceptable. “People are willing to donate their liver, heart and other such organs including their eyes. However, donating the hand, which is an external body part, is not acceptable,” added doctor Ramadevi.
Stating that the transplantation is not very common abroad as well, she said the public there is, however, better educated. She also said that they had stated in one of their awareness programmes that they would fix up an artificial limb to avoid showing the body as mutilated.
With Kerala’s Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences being the only hospital in the country to have seen two hand transplant cases, Dr Ramadevi stressed on the need for awareness on the same to be increased.
With the state boasting of the existence of a very efficient Transplant system called the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN), awareness on organ donation has found to be far from lacking.
“It is true that many people are hesitant to donate their hands. Transplant is promoted as a life-saving intervention and hand transplant is generally not thought to be so. People are therefore reluctant. If it was to save someone’s life, they would go the extra mile,” said Dr. J. Amalorpavanatha, former convener, TRANSTAN.
Stating that there are very few cases of hand transplants seen around the world, he said that there are alternatives available for the same. “A transplant would be essential only if both hands are amputated. A hand transplant is one of the most complicated surgeries and has a high failure rate, causing the public to refrain from opting for the same,” Dr. J. Amalorpavanatha said, suggesting that it would be better if all the cases were pooled into one centre in South India and one in the North.
