Eight months after the State government launched an organ transplant scheme for poor/BPL patients, a 39-year-old patient underwent a heart transplant in Narayana Hrudayalaya recently.
The ₹10 lakh transplant was done for free under the scheme. The heart of a 28-year-old male from Periyapattana near Mysuru has been transplanted to the beneficiary. The donor had met with an accident and was declared brain-dead on August 15. The recipient, Sanjay Hosamani, hails from Jamakandi taluk in Bagalkot district.
Under the scheme which was launched in January — apart from this heart transplant — five beneficiaries have availed of renal transplants so far at the State-run Institute of Neprho Urology located on Victoria Hospital campus. One of these five transplants is a live transplant.
Minister for Health and Family Welfare B. Sriramulu visited the hospital and met the recipient.
₹30 crore for transplant
Speaking to reporters later, he said the government had sanctioned a grant of ₹30 crore for the organ transplant scheme. The patient is doing well post-transplant, he added.
As of now, three private hospitals — Yenepoya Medical College, Mangaluru, Narayana Hrudayalaya, and Aster CMI, have been empanelled under the scheme that is applicable only for poor/BPL recipients, receiving organs from live or cadaveric donors.
According to the scheme guidelines, government hospitals will have to be considered first for live transplants and only if their capacity is exhausted can the transplants be done at private empanelled hospitals.
In case the donor is brain-dead, the transplant can happen either in a government or private empanelled hospital as a single seniority list of the recipient is maintained by ‘Jeevasaarthakate’, and one has to wait for his or her turn for the organ.
