Sahid Dharmabhakta National Transplant Centre (SDNTC) has performed its 1000th kidney transplantation on Wednesday. During the 10 years of its establishment, the transplant team led by Dr. Pukar Chandra Shrestha achieved significant success and performed kidney transplants for around 200 people every year. And 1,000 people have successfully transplanted kidney.
Under the leadership of Dr. Shrestha, a total of 1,048 transplants have been conducted at SDNTC, Bir Hospital, Pokhara Health Science Foundation and other hospitals.
Issuing a press release on Thursday, the SDNTC has praised the tireless efforts of doctors, nurses and all other employees of the SDNTC, journalists, politicians, artists, and community service workers who have made a significant contribution to achieve the historic success.
Although there is a provision for organ donation and transplantation after brain death, so far only a small number of such operations have been carried out, and due to lack of timely brain death information, only 8 kidneys and 2 livers received from 4 organ donors have been transplanted in a period of 6 years, according to the SDNTC.
According to Dr. Shrestha, the centre conducted transplant services despite the acute lack of space, the first liver transplant in Nepal, kidney transplant of four people on the same day and kidney and liver transplant from the organ of a brain-dead person with 99 per cent success rate.
Dr. Shrestha said that the centre has planned to establish a transplant health science institute to produce skilled manpower needed to expand transplant services in all the provinces of the country by arranging high-level studies and research in the transplant field.
The centre has also planned to expand the physical infrastructure to upgrade the center to 500 beds and make transplant services accessible to everyone, he added.
Transplantation services have already started at Western Regional Hospital under Pokhara Institute of Health Sciences in Gandaki Province, and it is planned to be done in Surkhet Hospital under Karnali Province every few weeks in the near future.
Dr. Shrestha said that the effort to start transplant services in Seti Provincial Hospital in Sudurpaschim Province, Madan Bhandari Institute of Health Sciences in Bagmati Province, Hetauda Hospital and Bharatpur Hospital has been in progress.
It is estimated that 1 in every 10 people will have some form of kidney disease. In Nepal, about 3,000 people suffer from kidney failure every year and many of them die prematurely due to lack of organ transplants.
Source : TRN,
