Aurangabad, Jan 2:
Organ donation and transplant activity are all set to resume in the city. Live kidney donations, which had come to a halt in Aurangabad following the coronavirus lockdown, have resumed after ten months.
Hospitals had suspended kidney transplantation surgeries due to the Covid‐19 pandemic because of concerns for patient safety and healthcare resources shortage. However, now kidney donations have resumed making way for transplantation surgeries. In all, six live kidney donations have taken place in Aurangabad in the past few days. The Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre (ZTCC) has framed the specific protocol, which includes the screening of deceased donors for possible Covid-19 infection. As per the new standard operating procedure (SOP), the ZTCC, whose role was earlier limited to cadaver organ donation, has been roped in for live kidney donations along with the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) authorisation panel to ensure that the precautionary measures are followed given the Covid-19 threat. ZTCC Marathwada president Sudhir Kulkarni said different hospitals have started planning live kidney donations with patients and their families'' consent. “The patients who are need of a renal transplant can survive on dialysis alone. As the Covid-19 infection has been curbed to some extent, there is a growing demand from patients and their families to resume the live kidney donations,” he said.
SOP for organ donation changed
Stringent protocol to avoid infection in both receiver and donor will be followed. Pre-hospitalization, isolation before the surgery and special care post-surgery is a must. As per the revised rules, both the patient and the donor have to undergo Covid testing twice within a gap of seven days. The approval is obtained from both the ZTCC and the GMCH panel only after test results return negative. The donor, as well as the recipient, are kept in special isolation units to avoid any chances of viral infection,” said Kulkarni.