The much hyped Jeevandhan organ transplantation programme of government of Andhra Pradesh has at last come out of hibernation as the government has now decided to set up a Jeevandan office in the directorate of medical education (DME) and steps are also taken to appoint a chief transplant coordinator to take care of the transplant activities in the state.

In fact the project was conceptualized in the year 2010 and the government even notified in the gazette to set up Jeevandhan organ transplantation project in the state. But during the past 2 years nothing was done by the state government to take forward the proposed project. As the demand for organ transplant is growing day by day, the government has now started taking action in this direction.

Earlier the state government had proposed to form a committee to streamline cadaver transplants and create a centralized registered waiting list. Currently only the Osmania General Hospital conducts one or two kidney transplants per month from live donors. According to NGOs, thousands are on the waiting list and many more requiring transplants are not even registered as no central online registry is maintained.

According to Lalitha Raghuram from Mohan Foundation, there are about 600 people who are in register with the transplant centre waiting for kidney transplantation. Similarly more than a hundred patients are awaiting a liver transplant.

In addition to these figures, there are thousands of other patients in the state who are unregistered. A part from usual kidney and liver transplants there are also patients who require some kind of other transplants, but they are unaware where to register themselves.

Moving forward with the Jeevandhan project, the directorate of medical education and chairman of the Jeevandhan project Dr Vasant Prasad had held a series of meetings with nephrologists in the city. He said, “Our meeting with 25 nephrologists had been fruitful and very soon things are going to be streamlined.”

At last the Jeevandhan project has come out of hibernation since past two years. A part from setting up an office and appointing a chief transplant coordinator, the health department is also planning to appoint other supporting staff very soon.