This story is from June 25, 2019

Visakhapatnam kidney racket casts shadow on organ donation

Visakhapatnam kidney racket casts shadow on organ donation
Picture used for representational purpose only
HYDERABAD: The recent kidney racket bust in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh at the private Shraddha Hospital in Visakhapatnam has resulted in a sharp decline in organ donations across the state. The ripple effect of the infamous kidney racket which was busted by cops in mid May, began almost immediately, bringing down cadaver donations under the Jeevandan Scheme from 16 cadavers (52 organs) in January to just 4 cadavers (11 organs) in the month of June.
As against an average of 15-20 donations per month during May (with the highest of 17 cadaver donations being recorded in May), the donations have dropped drastically and are now hitting the organ transplantation programme across various hospitals.
“There are hardly any kidney, liver or heart transplants happening across hospitals be it private or government. The Shraddha Hospital racket has shaken people’s faith in the altruistic nature of donations,” said an insider.
fear.

The task of Jeevandan coordinators too has become tougher than usual with many facing outright accusations of being wrongly motivated. “Although we regularly encounter aggressive behaviour by aggrieved family members of brain dead patients and it takes several rounds of approach to be able to counsel them to donate organs, almost all families are now refusing to even speak to us. They have a deep-seated fear of being wronged,” said a coordinator on condition of anonymity.
Going by the statistics from the Jeevandan programme, as against 310 organs donated last year between January and June, this year, there have been 236 donations during the same period. Among the organs that can be donated, including kidney, liver, heart, corneas, heart valves, lungs and pancreas, not a single heart valve or pancreas has been donated so far this year. Meanwhile, there are a total of 5,142 organ recipients registered under the Jeevandan programme who are awaiting organs for undergoing transplantation.
“While there has been a dip in donations, they have not stopped completely. Everytime there is an adverse incident like the one in Andhra Pradesh, organ donations take a hit and it takes a while to get back to the average,” said Dr G Swarnalatha, incharge, Jeevandan.
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