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| Counselors to educate on retrieving organs |
| BY GAYATHRI L
DH News Service
BANGALORE: In a push to the cadaver programme, grief counsellors (GC) - trained medico-social workers, have been appointed at four hospitals, which are transplant centres, in the last month on the insistence of the Zonal Co ordination Committee in Karnataka (ZCCK) for Transplants.
GCs will play an important role in offering counselling to relatives of critically ill patients and in the instance of brain death, they will educate and facilitate attendants of the patients to harvest organs.
The ZCCK, was set up under the aegis of the State government to co-ordinate transplants. Two cadaver
transplants have taken place in the State since
its inception in 2005.
The members of ZCCK, after a visit to the transplant
centres in May-June began insisting that each
one of the centres appoint dedicated grief counsellors.
Trained
“Every licensed centre needs one person who can speak to the attendants of brain dead patients about
harvesting organs, which the doctor or hospital staff
may not be able to do” said Co-ordinator, ZCCK, Jensy
Antony.
The grief counsellor being professionally trained will be able to communicate better with the grief stricken families, she said.
Rapport
Sujatha, a grief counsellor at M S Ramiah Memorial Hospital said, as GCs we provide counselling to patients in the ICU and their attendants establishing a rapport
with the family. In case of brain death, this rapport facilitates in approaching them about harvesting organs, she explains.
However, she says there is not enough awareness about the cadaver programme which tend to be a
drawback.
“I have had instances where a relative of a patient
from a rural area thought that the tube running
around the patient’s neck was to harvest his liver
and was suspicious that something underhand was
going on,” she recalled.
Counsellors to educate on harvesting organs
APPOINTED AT
St John’s Medical College & Hospital
Manipal Hospital
M S Ramiah Memorial Hospital
Sagar Apollo
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| Cadaver Organ Donation Credibility Gap to be Fille |
| BY GAYATHRI L
DH News Service
BANGALORE: They are in dire need of a kidney, heart
or liver, but the 80 potential recipients of these organs
registered on the Transplant List in Karnataka, are still
waiting. Not a single cadaver transplant (CT) has taken
place in the State since the Zonal Co-ordination Committee of Karnataka (ZCCK) for Transplantation was set up under the State Government aegis in February 2005.
CT is a process by which organs, including kidney,
liver and heart, from a brain-dead individual are retrieved and transplanted into an individual who has
an irreversible end-stage organ failure. While only 43
CTs have taken place in Karnataka since 1995, Mohan
Foundation, an NGO, has coordinated no fewer than 314
CTs in Tamil Nadu since 2000.
The ZCCK itself has had teething problems, taking
two years to frame guidelines and overcome nfrastructural constraints, to become fully functional by
February 2007. To gain momentum, the programme itself has many challenges to overcome. ZCCK Transplant Co-ordinator Jency Antony says
there have been just two cases of brain death reported in the past one year. “Many doctors are reluctant as
there is a misconception among patients’ relatives
that the doctor did not do enough to save the patients
and is more interested in retrieving the organs for
transplantation to save someone else,” Ashley
D’Cruz, Head of Pediatric Surgery at Narayana Hrudayalaya, says.
‘Awareness lacking’ A doctor who wished to remain anonymous recalls an incident a few years ago when police officials were called in to complete the post-mortem proceedings. “Seeing the ECG ticking,
they were upset with the hospital authorities as they
were unaware of the concept of brain death, a condition
where the heart beats, but the person cannot come
back to life,” he claims. For some on the Transplant
List, it has been a futile wait. Anju Chengappa’s father,
a chronic renal failure patient, registered in 2004.
“Two years down the line, his diabetes has become so
acute that even if a kidney is available today, it would be too risky to go ahead,” says Ms Anju.
Advantages Despite these drawbacks, CTs can help avoid ‘live transplants’, where an organ or portion of it is transplanted from a living relative, says Dr D’Cruz. The potential risk involved, though small, to the donor by this method, can be completely done away with, if there is a cadaver programme. To foster the programme, ZCCK has proposed to the Health Department that permits be issued to doctors to
identify brain death and ask licensed hospitals to appoint
trained counsellors, says Jency.
The committee also plans launching programmes to
take on its biggest challenge: Lack of awareness among
the public. “The onus is on the public to rise to this need
and pledge their organs,” says Dr D’Cruz.
No of those registered with ZCCK
Kidney 74
Heart 3
Liver 3
No of CTs in State since
1995
Kidney 40
Heart 1
Liver 2
AGONISING WAIT
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| Techies Educate Public on Organ Donation |
| BY GAYATRI L
DH News Service
BANGALORE:With only six cadaver transplants Conducted under the Zonal Coordination Committee of
Karnataka (ZCCK) since 2004, it is clear that the concept has not caught on. But now, a group of
Bangalore-based software professionals have come together to create public awareness on the issue.
ZCCK was constituted by the State government in 2004. Among its objectives are running a system
of cadaver organ sharing, applying, organ allocation criteria, ensuring minimal wastage of organs,
assuring quality control by collection, analysis and publication of data on organ donation, procurement and transplantation, increasing public awareness through programs, events and workshops. The group led by Aditya Singhal, a volunteer of ZCCK and working with IBM, has already set up a yahoo mail group (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ZCCK/) for networking, creating awareness, raising funds,
encouraging pledging of organs and promoting the cadaver programme.
The mailing group will serve as a common link for people who want to promote or discuss issues
related to cadaver organ donation in Karnataka. The public and doctors as well can post their experiences,
said Mr Aditya. The group has a number of initiatives
lined up for the year to help ZCCK with its functions,
which involves celebrity campaigns to student-based activities. Also on the cards is an education session with the Christ College students along with a celebrity,
an awareness session with IBM employees, distributing ZCCK stickers to the public and t-shirts for the volunteers, advertising through radio, organising
marathons to create awareness. “We also plan to work with hospitals to raise awareness about ZCCK and its activities. We are also working on income tax exemption
for any donation given to the ZCCK,” explained Mr Aditya.
Number of patients waiting
for renal transplant is 145.
Number of patients waiting
for liver transplant is 15.
Number of patients awaiting
heart transplant is 1.
R E C I P I E N T L I S T
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| AMAVASYA PREVENTS THEM FROM DONATING ORGANS |
| BY GAYATHRI L
DH News Service
BANGALORE: In yet another instance of religious beliefs and medical field locking horns, the family of a trauma patient withdrew their assent to donate organs to the State cadaver programme as it was Amavasya on Wednesday.
According to Hindu belief, death during Amavasya is consideredinauspicious. Gangadhar Iyer, a priest said it is considered inauspicious for a Hindu to die during Amavasya. It is believed the soul will not rest in peace, he explained. Following a road accident, a 70-year-old woman was admitted at a private hospital on Monday.
Her family had contacted Zonal Co-ordination Committee of Karnataka for Transplantation (ZCCK) through the hospital as she showed signs of being brain dead.
ZCCK is the body appointed to oversee the implementation of the Transplantation of Human Organs
Act of 1994. A doctor at the hospital said, the patient had brain stem dysfunction, but had not been declared
brain dead. The ZCCK guidelines say a patient can be declared brain dead only after two sets of tests six
hours apart, by a team of neurologist or neurosurgeon,
intensivist, physician and medical administrator.
It was after the first set of tests the family withdrew their offer. The patient’s family had changed their mind as it was Amavasya and requested the doctors to
help the patient pull through the Amavasya period.
But the recipients on the waiting list were not alerted as we had not yet received any reports on the condition of the organs, said a source from ZCCK. So far, six kidneys have been harvested under the ZCCK.
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