Osmania General Hospital (OGH), a government run hospital in Hyderabad, has successfully performed liver transplant surgery for the first time. With this, OGH has become the first government hospital in Telangana to take up organ transplantation surgeries, giving hope to thousands of poor people waiting for more such transplantations.

Earlier, leading super specialty hospitals, like Global Hospitals, Care Hospital, KIMS, Apollo, Yashoda and NIMS were regarded as only hospitals to carry out highly sophisticated surgeries, but thanks to skilled team of government doctors at OGH, they have proved that government hospitals too can achieve such feats of advanced surgeries.

Going into details of liver transplantation surgery, a poor patient who was suffering from liver disease needed an urgent liver donor. Having learned this, OGH doctors through Jeevandan organization of Telangana alerted other hospitals for a suitable donor. Fortunately, Jeevandan organization found a donor named Inukonda Mamatha, a 57-year-old woman, who was declared brain dead at a Care hospital in Hyderabad. Upon convincing the relatives of the donor, doctors retrieved liver, two kidneys, heart valves and corneas. A team of doctors at OGH who were waiting for a liver could successfully perform the marathon 10-15 hour transplantation surgery and saved a life.

Earlier, doctors from the Osmania had done transplantation of kidney, and the latest liver transplantation had proved the expertise of the doctors of the Osmania on equal lines of any corporate hospital. “We are excited with the successful performance of this first liver transplant surgery in OGH. This has given hope not only to poor patients, but has also improved the confidence levels of doctor community in the hospital to take up further such advances in the interest of the poor patients,” said a young junior doctor at OGH.

Over all the role of Jeevandan is commendable. Jeevandan organization which was established in 2013 in Telangana has been very much actively participating in the awareness programmes and has emerged as key institution for facilitating and encouraging organ donations from the common public.

At present majority of organ donations in the country are happening voluntarily or after convincing the relatives by counseling. There is a need for the government to bring in new legislation both at the state and central level to identify brain dead people across the country and accordingly prepare a database of organ donors and recipients, opined healthcare experts.