Slow pace of deceased organ donation keeps Kolkata transplant numbers low, say experts

Kolkata: Although organ transplants are back on track after the pandemic, the number remains few in comparison to the capacity of city hospitals with the necessary facilities. Experts cited the slow pace of deceased organ donation as the reason. This year, there have been only four deceased donations in Kolkata.

“In the US, the deceased versus living donor transplant is about 7:3. Various measures taken over the years, including setting up units called Organ Procurement Organisation in various regions and the federal government paying for the maintenance of donor organs, are paying off,” said Stanley C Jordan, Los Angeles-based professor of nephrology.
Jordan and Paris-based nephrology professor Denis Glotz were in the city for the two-day Kolkata Transplant Colloquium (KTC) that concluded on Sunday.
“The awareness has to begin from schools, and go up to the intensivists, who identify the brain dead. In France, 85% of the organs in transplant surgeries come from deceased donation, and we are working to increase this percentage,” said Glotz.

“The scenario in deceased versus living donation is just the reverse here. In fact, our unit has not had a single deceased organ this year while we have resumed our renal transplant programme on the full scale post the pandemic and are now conducting about 45 transplants a month,” said Deepak Shankar Ray, nephrology head at RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, also chairman, organising committee for the fourth KTC.

From 11 donations in Bengal in 2019, the pandemic had pushed down this count to only six in 2020. The number bounced back to 11 in 2021.

The state-run IPGMER has had at least seven brain deaths in the past couple of months in its level 1 trauma care. If families had not declined to donate the deceased’s organs, they could have saved at least 20 lives.
“Some patients on our waiting list have no living donor nor the funds to undergo the transplant. Some have gone to the south where the prospect of getting an organ earlier is higher due to higher deceased donations,” said gastroenterologist Pradeepta Kumar Sethy of the liver transplant unit at Medica Hospital.

The KTC by Indian Society of Nephrology (East Zone) and Narayana Health, held physically after the pandemic, had the doctors deliberating on different aspects of organ transplant.