PGI to get India’s first centre for organ transplant

Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 10

Organs to be transplanted

• The National Transplant Centre will have each floor dedicated to a particular organ transplant - kidney, liver, pancreas, lungs, heart, bone marrow and reconstructive transplant, informed officials of the PGI.

‘It’s the need of the hour

• A National Transplant Centre is the need of the hour in our country. The PGI has been doing multi-organ transplants for years now. Establishment of the NTC is the next logical step.Rs — Dr Yogesh Chawla, Director, PGI

To come up at Sarangpur

• According to the proposal, the seven-storeyed NTC will be constructed at Sarangpur near the PGI where 50 acres have already been allotted to the institute. The NTC will have a two-storeyed underground parking and will make available facilities like air ambulance and roadtransport of organs.

Institute considered due to Kayakalp Award

• The recent Kayakalp Award bagged by the PGI for being the cleanest public sector hospital, too, is a major factor that was taken into consideration before the blueprint of the project was drawn, remarked a senior administrative officer of the PGI.
   

If all goes as planned, the PGI, Chandigarh, will get India’s first National Transplant Centre (NTC) soon. The one-of-its-kind transplant centre will give the country its many firsts, including organ sharing and transport across the country, and procedures like full face and penile transplants. The proposal for the Rs 1,000-crore NTC has already been tabled before the board of PGI directors. According to the proposal, the seven-storeyed NTC will be constructed at Sarangpur near the PGI where 50 acres of land has already been allotted to the institute. The NTC will have a two-storeyed underground parking and will make available facilities like air ambulance and road transport of organs. Talking to The Tribune, Dr Yogesh Chawla, Director, PGI, said, “Having a National Transplant Centre is the need of the hour in our country. The PGI has been doing multi-organ transplants for years now. Establishment of the NTC is the next logical step.” A brainchild of Dr Arunanshu Behera, Head of the Department of General Surgery, PGI, the NTC will have each floor dedicated to a particular organ transplant - kidney, liver, pancreas, lungs, heart, bone marrow and reconstructive transplant, informed officials of the PGI. The NTC will also offer stem cell and cellular transplant, islet transplant and hepatocyte transplant. According to sources, teams of PGI experts are being trained for lung and reconstructive transplants. As per the proposal, the NTC will also house the PGI Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO) and will have highly specialised staff at all levels— ROTTO director, eight transplant surgeons with their own teams of trained experts, transplant co-ordinators, OT nurses, post-op care nurses and house-keeping staff. The NTC will have offices for all-India organ sharing network, organ harvesting team and an ethical and authorisation committee for organ transplant along with specialised laboratories, informed a senior faculty member. Significantly, the project is an off-shoot of the consistently rising awareness and figures of organ transplants, donations and pledging at the PGI’s ROTTO,