King George's Medical University in Lucknow to fully revive Cadaver organ donation program

One of Lucknow's prominent medical centres, the KGMU has decided to completely revive organ donations under its Cadaveric Multi-Organ Donation (CMOD) programme. Initially launched in 2016, the scheme aims to retrieve functional organs from brain dead patients for transplants surgeries. With its comeback, the KGMU hopes to save hundreds of lives per year, including those suffering from skin cancer, burn injuries and even the visually challenged.

A new ray of hope for several patients

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King George's Medical University receive multiple patients with failed organs, who can greatly benefit from the CMOD programme. Reportedly, the KGMU Trauma Centre records a daily average of 1-2 brain deaths in a day and most of these patients are accident victims. This means that patients usually have several functioning organs, where both kidneys, lungs and corneas, along with other body parts such as liver, heart, pancreas, intestines and skin tissues can be retrieved for donation.

Besides reviving the CMOD scheme, the KGMU Vice Chancellor, Lt Gen Prof Bipin Puri (retd) also set the ball rolling for various awareness programmes at the hospitals. On Tuesday, a workshop was held at the KGMU to educate the faculty and paramedic staff at the critical care and casualty department.

Preparations to relaunch CMOD at KGMU

"They will be sensitised about what constitutes 'brain death' and about steps that need to be followed thereafter so that organ retrieval can be performed.", the VC elaborated. Parallelly, the medical institute will train and strengthen a counselling team to convince the families of the brain dead patients to give consent for organ donation.

Meanwhile, a nodal committee will also be set to streamline coordination among various departments at KGMU to smoothly conduct the programme. The additional department has to ensure that CMOD is conducted in accordance with norms set by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation and the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation.

Apnea Test is mandatory before Cadaver donations

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According to the established guidelines, Cadaver donations can only be executed if the donor has been declared dead after 2 apnea tests. Both tests need to be at least 6 hours long, as per the standard protocol. This is a mandatory examination that helps to determine brain death, as it provides the key sign of definitive loss of brainstem function.

As per reports, the KGMU had conducted several CMODs in its last run. Around 30 of these were conducted by the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology, while the ophthalmic department operated for donated corneas. Further, the scheme has also relayed about 24 livers were sent to Delhi-based institutions and 58 kidneys to the SGPGIMS for transplant.