Organ transplants: GMC to prepare waiting list

The Goa Medical College (GMC) has begun the process of formulating an official waiting list of patients in need of organ transplants. The regional organ and tissue transplant organisation (ROTTO) had advised the GMC to do so following the controversy over organs of a 60-year-old brain-dead Goa resident being flown to Mumbai for transplants.

Dr. Pradeep Naik, dean of GMC, said, “The nephrology and the urology departments will come together to draw up a list of patients in need of kidney transplants. The process of establishing a State organ and tissue transplant organisation (SOTTO) has also been initiated.”

On April 9, Goa saw its first cadaver organ donation at Manipal Hospital, where the 60-year-old patient was declared brain dead and his family consented to donate his organs. In the absence of a SOTTO and an official waiting list of patients with the GMC, the two kidneys and a liver of the donor were allotted to patients in Mumbai.

While the liver was transplanted to a patient at Global Hospital, one kidney each went to Bombay Hospital and Jaslok Hospital. This was the second brain dead declaration by Manipal Hospital. The family of the first patient did not agree to donate organs. While at first, the cadaver donation was hailed , it got mired in a controversy when questions were raised about allotment of organs outside Goa.

‘Ready to help’

“Today, if they [Goa] have another cadaver donor, they will still not be able to take the organs for their own patients as they don’t have an official waiting list of patients,” said Dr. Sujata Patwardan of ROTTO, which was instrumental in allotting the organs to Mumbai patients. “We had written them at least three emails to start a SOTTO. If they need any kind of guidance, we will help them.”

In Maharashtra, which has an active zonal transplant coordination committee, an equivalent to the SOTTO, cadaver organs get allotted to patients within the State as it has an exhaustive waiting list. Only hearts may have been sent to the other State as heart transplants are fairly new and have shorter waiting lists.

In Goa, the GMC is the only hospital that has carried out 16 kidney transplants, with live donors. “We have an unofficial waiting list of kidney patients in the nephrology department. But we are now formalising everything as per the SOTTO criteria,” Dr. Naik said.

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