The Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) and Hospital has become the first government medical college in the State to successfully conduct live kidney transplant and it is ready to take up cadaver transplant.
Addressing presspersons in Hubballi on Friday, KIMS director Ramalingappa Antaratani said through a coordinated effort by the departments of nephrology, urology, and anaesthetics, the kidney of a 44-year-old woman had been successfully transplanted to her 22-year-old son.
Dr. Ramalingappa said the youth who hailed from Bagalkot district was suffering from chronic glomerulonephritis and was on dialysis. After the mother came forward to donate her kidney, the transplant was carried out after completing all the legal formalities. The procedure, stay, and medication were provided free to the patient under the ABARK scheme, he said. Both mother and son are set for discharge from the hospital.
Free of cost
He said the kidney transplant surgery which cost lakhs of rupees in private hospitals would be carried out free of cost under ABARK scheme for BPL cardholders. “The Government pays 25% of the procedure cost for patients of APL (Above Poverty Line) under ABARK. And the surgery would cost around ₹1.5 lakh for them,” he said adding that with the successful completion of the first kidney transplant, the KIMS team planned to conduct more such transplants in the coming days.
HoD of Department of Nephrology Venkatesh Moger said because of the coordinated efforts of all, the transplantation went smoothly. It took two hours for the team to retrieve the kidney from the donor and three hours to transplant it. Two different teams carried out the surgeries simultaneously.
Apart from Dr. Moger, Dr. Mayya, Dr. M.R. Patil, and Dr. Vivek Ganiger from Department of Nephrology; Dr. R.R. Rayakar, Dr. Jaydeep Ratkal, Dr. Manjuprasad, Dr. Ravikumar Jadhav, Dr. Samathkumar, Dr. Takappa from Department of Urology; Dr. Madhuri, Dr. Bhosale and Dr. Sheetal Hiregoudar from Department of Anaesthetics, and transplantation coordinator Dr. Shivanand H. Honakeri were involved. The nursing staff was led by Padma P. and Hannapal B.
Dr. Moger said that as getting approval for the surgery involved several technicalities and administrative procedures, along with Dr. Ramalingappa, CAO Dr. Vijaykumar Honakeri, principal Dr. Ishwar Hosamani, Medical Superintendent Dr. Arunkumar, Deputy Medical Superintendent Dr. Dyaberi, RMO Dr. S.B. Katkol, nodal officer for PMSSY Dr. Aravind and others chipped in.
To a query, Dr. Ramalingappa clarified that KIMS was now ready for cadaveric kidney transplant. However the patients would have to follow the procedure of registering with the website ‘www.jeevaasarthakathe.karnataka.gov.in’ for the kidney transplant. But in cases where close family members come forward to donate kidney, they could approach KIMS directly, he said.
He said that at present the two main tests, HLA and cross matching that would decide whether a particular kidney transplant could be carried out were being conducted at Bangalore Medical Services Trust (BMST) and efforts were on get the required lab facilities installed at KIMS.
