After a preparation of over one and half years, the PMSSY super-speciality hospital here commenced its liver transplant programme on Friday making the expensive surgery available for the urban poor at an affordable cost.
The cadaveric liver transplant was conducted on 38-year-old B. Somashekar from Shivanahalli in Rajajinagar by airlifting the organ from Mangalore. A green corridor was created to transport the organ from the Kempegowda International Airport to the PMSSY hospital located on the campus of Victoria Hospital. The ambulance carrying the organ covered 38 kilometres in 30 minutes.
The 42-year-old brain dead donor Leena Binoy had met with a road traffic accident in Mangalore on July 1.
The procedure, which costs over Rs 30 lakh in private hospitals, has been done for less than Rs Three lakh at the PMSSY hospital. The recipient Somashekar, who is from a poor background, has been under treatment for chronic liver disease in the hospital for the last two years.
While over 160 patients have registered with the Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka for Transplantation (ZCCK), 60 have enrolled in the PMSSY hospital’s liver clinic.
Nagesh N.S., who heads he transplant team at PMSSY hospital, said of the 60, 11 had been worked up and registered with ZCCK. “We are under the process of working up 20 more patients,” he said adding that this would be a boon to poor patients who cannot afford treatment cost in private hospitals.