The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : MIOT Hospitals launches tertiary care in nephrology

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Monday, Jul 21, 2008
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MIOT Hospitals launches tertiary care in nephrology

Special Correspondent

The centre aims to perform three to four kidney transplants every day

— Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

NEW UNIT: (From left ) P.V.A. Mohandas, Managing Director, MIOT Hospitals, Kazunari Tanabe, Chief, Section of Renal Transplantation, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Mallika Mohandas, Chairman, MIOT Hospitals, and Rajan Ravichandran, Director, MIOT Institute of Nephrology, at the inauguration of the Nephrology institute on Sunday. A publication on kidney diseases and cure being released.

CHENNAI: MIOT Hospitals has launched a tertiary care in nephrology that will offer a new technique of mismatched transplants or procedures involving donor-relatives with a different blood group.

The MIOT Institute of Nephrology will take up mismatched transplants, facilitated by drugs that remove antibodies across three or four sessions, as they have proved to be a safe and reliable technique in a few countries, especially Japan, doctors said. The procedure helps to expand the pool of potential donors among relatives.

Besides, in conjunction with the technique of laparoscopic nephrectomy (grafting the organ through pinhole surgery), encourage organ donation as they involve smaller incisions, lesser pain and reduced hospital stay.

The MIOT Institute of Nephrology, which aspires to be among the best nephrology centres in the world, will combine state-of-the-art transplantation and dialysis care with teaching, training and research.

“With full-fledged facilities and a core team of nephrologists and urologists in place, the centre aims to perform three to four kidney transplants every day,” MIOT managing director Dr. P.V.A. Mohandas told a press meet on Sunday. Straight-away, the centre has set itself a goal that reflects a resolve not to allow the stringent norms currently governing transplantation programmes to choke a speciality that could save millions of lives. “The centre will perform procedures ethically and within the bounds of law”, Dr. Mohandas stated.

Dr. Rajan Ravichandran, Director, MIOT Institute of Nephrology, said the Rs. 10-crore 100-bed centre with two operation theatres would rank among the largest in the world. However, the aim is not to compete in size alone but to compete in quality care and cost control, he said.

“The costs would be structured in a way so that the common man would not be displaced from the so-called corporate healthcare context,” Dr. Ravichandran said.

Dr. Kazunari Tanabe, who heads the Section of Renal Transplantation at Tokyo Women’s Medical University, said blood group mismatched transplants had proved to be as good as conventional transplants.

On the research front, the MIOT nephrology centre expects to shortly patent the administering of resins to ferry away toxins. In trials conducted with the IIT-Madras, the polymers that do not run the risk of bio-absorption, were efficient in flushing out phosphorus which typically builds up in renal patients.

An important objective of the centre would be to train MBBS doctors in the rudiments of picking up renal disease early, dialysis care and checking the progression of the disorder into chronic kidney disease. These “barefoot doctors” would help deliver basic nephrology diagnosis and care in the rural areas.

India had only 800 nephrologists concentrated in cities and towns as opposed to a country like the US which had 14,000 specialists.

Presiding over the inauguration of the new centre, N. Ravi, Editor, The Hindu, called for a vigorous campaign to popularise cadaver transplants for the kidney and other organs. The experience elsewhere in the world had been that making enrolment for pledging organs as the default condition and allowing people the choice to opt out was more effective than the other way round, he said.

Inaugurating the centre, Dr. Kazunari Tanabe said Japan expected to collaborate more closely with Indian healthcare institutions to develop better and cost-effective protocols.

Ms. Mallika Mohandas, MIOT chairman, also spoke. Earlier, Ms. Sudha Ravi lit the lamp at the inaugural ceremony.

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