CHENNAI: Lack of facilities has held up a project that could benefit hundreds of heart patients and cut costs for the public health system.
About six months ago, the State government issued an order allowing a private institution in Mogappair to harvest cardiac valves from “unclaimed cadavers” at government hospitals. The GO included a clause “that 50 per cent of the valves harvested, sterilised and cryo-preserved at the cost of the hospital should be given free of cost to the city government medical institution at Chennai on demand”.
The GO further said that an account of valves harvested may be maintained by Dr. M.G.R. Medical University central organ registry.
Valves are tissues that do not receive blood and can hence be removed and stored. But they must be removed within four to six hours of a person’s death, doctors say. Transplanting biovalves would reduce the surgery cost by 90 per cent. The only cost the hospital would incur is the charge involved in removal and storage of the harvested valves, the dean said.
Though the Government General Hospital that does the maximum number of valve replacement surgeries (about 230) every year, only a few had benefited from the procedure, said hospital dean T.P. Kalaniti. As the valve retrieval had not been done regularly, the benefit had not been great.
“We are in the process of submitting a proposal and the government is also interested. The cardio thoracic professor has to give the detailed proposals listing the logistics,” he added.
“We have the technical know-how,” said K. Harshavardhan, head of Cardio Thoracic Department, but the logistics are yet to be worked out.
The hospital would require Rs. 40 lakh to set up a valve bank, he explained. But that would only be the first step. “We need a bereavement counsellor who can talk to the family of the dying person. We can harvest valves from people in the 15-60 age group,” he added.
“We have been importing valves at Rs. 50,000 per piece. They are not the answer for all age groups as patients must take blood thinning tablets. Women in the productive age could be implanted biovalves,” he said.
Meanwhile, sources at the medical university said attempts were also being made to revive the registry.