Minister for Medical and Health, Dr Kodela Sivaprasada Rao, said the Government of Andhra Pradesh would propose a legislation to make organs procurement and transplantation easy and safe. He was speaking after inaugurating the 14-bed Liver Intensive Care Unit (LICU) at Global Hospitals, Hyderabad, on Wednesday.

Stressing the need for picking up momentum in organ transplantation, Dr Rao said it was essential to bring in a law to tide over legal and other hurdles in procuring organs for transplantation. He said several kidney and liver patients died while waiting for a donor.

Dr Rao said Hyderabad was becoming a hub for medical care of international standards. One such hospital was Global Hospital, he said, adding these hospitals should provide excellent treatment at affordable cost.

The Minister said, "The government cannot start hospitals of this kind. We concentrate on preventive cure and primary healthcare centres, spending about Rs 1,500 crore a year."

Dr Rao said medical insurance should be made compulsory so that even the poor patients could make use of the latest facilities available in the corporate hospitals. He said corporate hospitals had revolutionised the healthcare scenario in the country. More and more people across the globe, especially from the Gulf and the African countries, were turning to India for medical purposes. They get better service at a cheaper rate when compared to the western countries. The revenue received from what he called Medical Tourism should be utilised to subsidise treatment for the poor patients in the country, he said.

Global is India''''''''s first hospital for multi-organ transplantation. The Institute focuses on gastroenterology, liver and pancreas diseases, GI surgery, advanced laproscopic surgery, renal diseases, urology, haematology, oncology and allied organ transplantation under one roof.

The inauguration of the liver ICU was precursor to the first liver transplantation in the hospital sometime in November. The Health Minister has already booked a patient. There were 10 other registered patients waiting for liver transplantation.

Dr K Ravindranath, Managing Director of the Hospital, is a Fellow from the Royal College of Surgeons, UK. Having worked with the liver transplant team at the King''''''''s College Hospital, London, Dr Ravindranath, a surgical gastroenterologist, had kept himself abreast of the latest developments in the area of liver transplantation and this inspired his passion to bring liver transplantation to India, according to a statement issued by the hospital.

Dr Ravindranath said the hospital had been envisaged, built and equipped to undertake, kidney, bone marrow, liver, pancreas and intestine transplantation. This was the only facility in India to have received funding from the Govt of India''''''''s Technology Development Board. The hospital had already carried out both cadaver and live related kidney transplants.

The liver ICU was equipped with sophisticated diagnostic and imaging machinery, artificial liver support system, ventilators, haemodynamic monitors, continuous renal replacement therapy which facilitated advanced dialysis in kidney failure patients, imported intensive care beds to take care of very ill patients.

According to Dr Dharmesh Kapoor, Hepatologist, 35-40 % of liver diseases in India were alcohol-related , 35 % Hepatitis-B, 25 % Hepatitis-C, while metabolic, autoimmune or drug related diseases accounted for the rest.

Quoting 2001 statistics, Dr Kapoor said there were 47 million people chronically infected with Hepatitis-B virus in India out of the world''''''''s 350 million so infected. In addition, there were about 23 million people infected with Hepatitis-C virus. Twenty per cent of Hepatitis-B and C infected patients develop complications like cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer over a period of time.

The treatment involves molecular adsorbent recirculating system (MARS), which is an albumin dialysis system for removing toxins that accumulate during liver failure. Stating that the therapy with MARS obviated the need for liver transplantation in many cases by enabling the liver to regenerate itself and regain its lost functions, Dr Kapoor said the therapy also enabled patients with end-stage disease and awaiting a donor liver for transplantation to tide over the critical period.

Dr Kapoor said the mortality rate in acute, sub-acute and chronic liver failure was estimated at around 90 % with standard medical therapy. Such patients would have a new lease of life with the use of devices of the kind available in Global Hospital. The world over, the survival rate following treatment with MARS had been reported as 63-65 % in select group of patients, he said.

Besides Dr Ravindranath and Dr Kapoor, the department has three other doctors who had worked in King''''''''s College, London, which is the apex centre of liver sciences in Europe. The three doctors are Dr K Ramesh, paediatric hepatologist, Dr P B N Gopal, anaesthesiologist and intensivist, and Dr Santosh Verghese, internal medicine intensivist.