Stanley Hospital to be NOTP training resource centre

http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/26/stories/2009062658540200.htm

CHENNAI: The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has identified the Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital as one of the 10 training resource centres under the National Organ Transplant programme (NOTP).

Accordingly, a request was sent to the State Health Department seeking permission for utilising Stanley Medical College and Hospital as a training resource centre.

The government passed an order on Tuesday conveying its concurrence with the proposal. Preparatory activities will now be set in motion at the hospital, V.K. Subburaj, Principal Secretary, Health, told The Hindu.

Two centres have been chosen in Tamil Nadu to be resource centres, the other being Christian Medical College, Vellore.

These two hospitals are also key liver transplant centres in the country, apart from R&R Army Hospital and Ganga Ram Hospital, both in New Delhi, which also figure on the list of 10 chosen centres under the National Organ Transplant Programme.

The other centres are AIIMS, Delhi; PGI, Chandigarh; SSKM, Kolkata; SGPGI, Lucknow; KEM, Mumbai; and Nizam Institute, Hyderabad.

The centres will be involved in conducting training programmes for dialysis physicians, surgeons training in transplantation, among others.

In addition, a communiqué from the DGHS says that the NOTP is being developed as a new initiative of the Central government. It also hopes to overcome problems such as an acute shortage of organs or a formal programme to facilitate the availability of organs, and an acute shortage of manpower to implement the transplantation programme.

The first step, preparation of a draft programme, has been cleared and sent to all State governments and discussed in the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare.

It has also indicated that these hospitals are likely to be strengthened further for working under the State Organ Procurement and Distribution Organisation (SOPDO) in the State.

Stanley Medical College has already started work on setting up a Cadaver Maintenance Programme, which would serve the exact purpose of the SOPDO.

An exclusive ward with ambulance facilities and transportation would be set up at the Hospital to take care of brain dead patients until their relatives make up their minds to donate the organs.

“We will maintain the patients who cannot afford care outside entirely free of cost even if the family decides not to donate the organs,” R. Surendran, head, Institute of Surgical Gastroenterology and Liver Transplantation, Stanley Medical College, said. Grief counsellors will be appointed to speak to relatives.

A sum of Rs. 1.11 crore has been allocated for this purpose and the funds have been sanctioned. The existing set up makes the hospital an ideal choice to be a State Organ Procurement and Distribution Organisation, he added.