KOZHIKODE: “A collective effort by the health sector and the general public is needed to bridge the gap between organ demand and supply,” Health Minister K.K. Shylaja has said.
Opening a meet on ‘Heart failure and heart transplant’ organised as part of the fifth annual conference of Society for Heart failure and Transplantation (SHFT) here on Saturday, she called upon government and private hospitals to make a coordinated effort to broaden the organ donor pool and implement functional transplant programmes.
Expenditure
The Minister said the State was committed to evolving comprehensive schemes for the prevention and management of cardiac ailments, and that the government’s healthcare expenditure had grown from ₹470 crore in 2012-13 to ₹1,013 crore in the last fiscal.
SHFT president K. Venugopal drew attention to major concerns in heart transplant and called upon all States to develop proactive donation and transplant programmes.
Andreas Zuckermann from the University of Vienna, Austria, spoke on the occasion.
Jayan Parameshwar and Catherine Sudarshan, Papworth Hospital, UK, and Theresa A. McDonagh from King’s College Hospital, London, addressed various sessions.
The conference concluded on Sunday.