Bhubaneswar: The state government will soon make the liver transplantation unit at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack functional enabling it to undertake liver transplantation and surgery in the state, sources said.
In a letter to the Director of Medical Education and Training Saturday, Health and Family Welfare additional secretary Surjit Das has written that Joint Director of Medical Education and Training Uma Satpathy will be made the nodal officer to implement the initiative.
Health officials said that the state government had sought hand-hold support of experts from reputed hospitals across country to train the faculty and staff of liver transplantation unit at the hospital. Accordingly, Prof (Dr) Tom Cherian of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, has agreed to offer his expertise to the SCB unit and to take the initiative forward.
Sources said Dr Cherian is scheduled to visit the state January 24 to meet and hold discussions with concerned stakeholders and government officials to find ways and means to make the initiative feasible in the state.
In view of his visit, concerned health officials have been asked to prepare a plan of action to conduct practical liver transplantation following which the initiative will be taken forward.
Notably, setting up of the liver transplantation unit has already been delayed. The state government had taken a decision in 2013 to set up the unit by 2014. In addition, the government had also sanctioned around `22crore for the project.
Though SCBMCH is said to have readied space, having OTs, ICUs, pre-operation and post-operation wards among other things for this project, the unit couldn’t be made functional in the absence of proper training of staff.
Sources said, the SCBMCH staff was provided training in New Delhi last year to equip them to run the unit, which is expected to function under the surgical gastroenterology department with doctors drawn from home discipline as well as medicine, radiology, pathology, anesthesiology and critical care medicine departments.
With a large number of patients having to go outside Orissa for high-cost liver transplant surgery, the move would prove to be significant as it would o help in bringing down the cost of such surgeries.
PNN
