Drones for donated organ transport to be a norm soon: Experts

Nagpur: Soon, stopping vehicular movement on roads and driving ambulances at optimum speed will be things of the past as customized drones will deliver organs directly from one hospital to another through the aerial route. After the prototype of the organ, transport drone was demonstrated in Chennai successfully last month, it will soon become a norm, said Dr Viresh Gupta, veteran nephrologist and patron of the 32nd Annual Conference of The Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT), at Monday.

“Organ transport through drone will save cost, and time, and will ensure accurate delivery with the least human contact. This will save many lives in the near future,” said Dr Gupta.

“Despite multiple obstacles like religious obligations, trust issues with private hospitals, poorly equipped government hospitals, and limited infrastructure, the organ donation of brain dead patients has increased from 0.05% to 0.08% in the past three years,” said Dr Gupta. He added that the organ donation activity suffered from a huge 11.6% reduction during the last two pandemic years and now picking up again.

“Organs of brain-dead patients can be harvested. For this, the notification of brain-dead patients must be mandatory,” said Dr Sanjay Kolte, secretary of Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre (ZTCC) Nagpur, who is also a co-organizing chairman of the international conference.

Presently, organ donation is conducted only from those patients who are declared ‘brain dead’ by expert doctors. Generally, deaths due to road accidents, and brain strokes are considered for organ donation. But soon, the organs of those who died naturally (for example due to old age) can also be retrieved. Experts said, they require legal backing for this. Dr Rahul Saxena, Dr Manish Balwani, Dr Prakash Khetan were also present.

ISOT’s international event

The ISOT’s conference will be held in Nagpur between October 12-16 at multiple venues with many national and international experts expressing their views on organ transplant activity in India. This event also marks 2nd Mid-term Meeting of Liver Transplantation Society of India and 15th Annual International Conference of NATCO (Network and Alliance of Transplant Coordinators). The conference is designed for doctors and ICU staff. It will also have valuable information about Donation after Cardiac death (DCD). This is a new donor pool that may help narrow the gap in need and availability of organs for transplantation.