Lack of awareness, fear of body mutilation and disfigurement, and religious taboos seems to be the reason why the bone bank at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is almost empty.
The bank hasn’t seen a single donation in the past two years despite bone transplant being fairly common and being very much in need.
Rajesh Malhotra, the chief of AIIMS Trauma Centre who also set up the bank, said earlier this week: “The bank was set up in 1999 but our first bone donation came only in 2001. The bank has recorded just 26 cadaver donations. The bank got one donation in 2011, two in 2015 and nine in the past five years.”
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Storing of bones
Bones from cadavers have to be retrieved within 12 hours. However, if the body is refrigerated the time frame extends up to 38 hours. Bones are stored at minus 70 degrees and can be preserved for five years.
The doctor said lack of awareness and religious taboos seem to the major reasons preventing people from pledging bones for donations. “There’s also the fear that taking out bones will mutilate and disfigure the body and the limbs will become shapeless and hang. This is far from the truth,” Dr. Malhotra assured.
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After the bones are taken out, he explained, the body is reconstructed and shape of the limbs is restored with the help of wooden sticks, cotton and wool. “The team takes 10 minutes to remove bones from the body. The next 30 minutes are spent stitching the body so that its structure doesn’t change,” he said.
Test for HIV
The bones are tested for HIV, hepatitis or any other infection before retrieval.
“Donated bones are used for replacement of a lost segment of bone owing to cancer, infection or injury,” said Dr. Malhotra. Only 35% of thousands of cancer and trauma patients receive the transplant every year.