Kolkata: State government plans to develop RG Kar Medical College and Hospital as a kidney transplant centre with upgraded infrastructure in various departments, including cardiothoracic vascular surgery (CTVS) department which plays a crucial role in the surgery.
An advanced trauma care centre was recently introduced at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Patients with critical injuries and those having injuries on backbone will get treatment at the advanced trauma care center. Burn patients will also undergo treatment at this centre as well. A night shelter has also been launched to accommodate the relatives of the patients. Number of beds and the number of expert doctors have also been increased at the hospital.
Rogi Kalyan Samiti Chairman Dr Sidipto Roy said that there are plans to introduce a kidney transplant centre at the hospital. Various steps have been taken. Advanced facilities will be set up at the CTVS department. Other departments like neurology and nephrology will also be upgraded to facilitate the kidney transplantations. The hospital will have the capacity of carrying out at least kidney transplants on two patients a week, sources in the health department said.
It may be mentioned here that Calcutta Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) became the first government hospital in the state to carry out a successful heart transplant in 2018. Heart transplant was done by SSKM Hospital as well.
Constant awareness campaigns conducted by the state Health department at both the government-run and private hospitals have started yielding results as Bengal has seen an unprecedented spur in organ transplant in the last couple of years. Due to Covid the number slightly dropped in the past two years. Instances of organ transplants that have occurred in the state are essentially that of the cadaver transplant.
Organs were retrieved from patients who were declared brain dead by the competent authorities and were later transported to other hospitals and transplanted on patients who were in need of such organs. Like other states, the whole process is done through a register maintained by the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO) holding names of potential receivers who urgently require organs.