The Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital (TVMCH) has successfully performed its 7th renal transplant.
Speaking to reporters at TVMCH on Friday, Dean K. Sithy Athiya Munavarah said the TVMCH that had performed its first renal transplant on September 30, 2015 conducted the seventh surgery on September 7 in which auto driver Sakthivel (36) of Seythunganallur in Thoothukudi district donated one of his kidneys to his wife Vallithaai (34).
As his wife was undergoing dialysis following renal failure, Mr. Sakthivel volunteered to donate his kidney.
Led by V. Ramasubramanian, Head, Department of Nephrology, TVMCH, a team of surgeons and anaesthetists successfully conducted the surgery on September 7.
“Both the donor and the recipient had uneventful recovery after the surgeries. The TVMCH is the only government medical college hospital in Tamil Nadu to perform 7 renal transplant surgeries after Rajiv Gandhi General Hospital in Chennai. Buoyed by this success rate, we’ve planned to conduct two surgeries every month,” Dr. Sithy said.
The surgery, which would have cost anywhere between ₹4 lakh to 5 lakh in the private hospitals, has been done under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme.
The Dean also said that steps had been taken to create a special team at TVMCH to harvest vital organs from the donors, especially from brain dead donors.
Dr. Sithy asserted that there was no dengue outbreak in the district as the TVMCH was receiving only a few cases, which was much lower than the outbreak that rocked the district in 2012.
“At present, we’ve got four children and seven adults in the dengue ward,” she said.
Vice-Principal Revathi Balan and Medical Superintendent Ravichandran were present.
