With the target of one kidney transplant per week, the Central Government-run Safdarjung Hospital opened its kidney transplant unit earlier this month and has performed its first successful surgery.
The hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr. B. D. Athani said the first operation was performed on October 8 and the next is scheduled for October 21-22.
“We have already short-listed five candidates who are in need of the surgery and have a ready donor. The aim of the facility will be to ensure that we are able to serve the poorest of the poor, build proper medical expertise and build our system capacity. The idea is to run this facility in a sustainable manner,” said Dr. Athani.
He said the first kidney transplant at the facility was performed on Ram Pravesh Pandey (52), a gardener from Bihar. His wife the donor.
“The patient had been on dialysis for the past three years and now after the surgery is doing well, though he will have to be on life-long medication to maintain the transplanted kidney,” noted Dr. Athani. The surgery was guided and supervised by experts from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and BLK Hospital. The other government hospitals doing kidney transplants in Delhi are AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohia and Army Hospital (Research & Referral).
