British Medical Journal article praises TN’s transplant programme
Posted on: 15/Apr/2013 2:51:14 PM
An article by Sandhya Srinivasan titled ‘Has Tamil Nadu turned the tide on the transplant trade?’ in the British Medical Journal has sung praises about transplant tourism and procedures in the State.
The article has quoted J. Amalorpavanathan, a transplant coordinator, saying, ‘We work with two-and-a-half people, a couple of computers, and a budget of just Rs. 10 lakh a year, yet we are able to generate half as many donations as a typical organ procurement organisation in the West does, with more than 100 staff.’
The article says, ‘Between the programme’s launch in October 2008 and February 2013, at total of 573 kidneys, 286 livers, 52 hearts, and 15 lungs from 317 dead donors were retrieved and transplanted in the State. The number of dead donors rose from 59 in 2009 to 83 in 2012. In 2012, almost half of organ donations from dead donors in India were from Tamil Nadu. The State’s cadaver kidney donation rate has gone up from 0.3 per million population to 1.3 per million population, compared with the national average of 0.08 per million population.’
