Need for greater awareness stressed

Website on Jeevandan (www.jeevandan.gov.in) launched

Hyderabad: An awareness programme to propagate ‘Jeevandan’ scheme for cadaver organ transplantation was held at Gandhi hospital on Wednesday. On the occasion, a website on Jeevandan was also launched to help create awareness among the general public.

Ajay Sawhney, Principal Secretary to Health, Medical and Family Welfare, who inaugurated the programme, praised the hard work of the staff of Jeevandan nodal agency at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in organ donations.

“The Jeevandan programme began in June, 2012 at NIMS hospital. Within one year of its inception, it received 156 organs from 35 donors. It is really a remarkable progress,” Sawhney said. He expressed hope that very soon many more government hospitals would join this programme and felt transplantation was not an easy task. He appreciated the efforts of Gandhi Hospital in taking up transplantations on a large scale and also the families of the donors.

Dr L Narendranath, Director, NIMS, felt real heroes are donors and their families. “We should salute them. Doctors and staff at the government hospitals are very much capable to perform transplantation procedures. I am very much optimistic that in near future we can do heart transplantation at Gandhi Hospital,” he said.

Dr Chandrasekhar, Superintendent of Gandhi Hospital, said there are many number of brain death cases in the State. “According to one study, our State tops the list in brain death cases in 2012 in all over the country. Lack of awareness also takes its toll. The disappointing aspect is government hospitals are not participating in cadaver transplantations actively as private hospitals. We are prepared to take up the transplantations task in a very short time at Gandhi,” he informed. Dr Shanta Rao, Director of Medical Education, said, “The enthusiasm showed by the Jeevandan team at NIMS in both counseling and implementation of the scheme is really laudable. I wish them to bring this scheme near to the common people as still there is lot of ignorance and lack of awareness among the public about organ donation.”

Nephrologist and transplantation surgeon Dr Pradeep Deshpande said, “Every year two lakh kidney patients are pooling. Among them 20 per cent people are only receiving replacement therapies and 5 per cent for transplantations.” Dr Manish Sahai, head of Nephrology Department, Osmania Hospital said, “Due to accidents, daily brain death cases come to Osmania Hospital. So, we need regular grief counselor to give counseling to families of brain dead patients. And there is a great need to establish a small Jeevandan cell at every government hospital along with a clerk and computer. If these facilities are provided we can produce more fruitful results.”

Dr Venkatesh, Dr Srinivas, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Swarnalatha, B Sharma (who designed the website for Jeevandan) and others also spoke on this occasion. The donors’ family members were felicitated on this occasion and presented with appreciation certificates.