Patient misses out on liver as Osmania General Hospital runs out of preservative to transport organ 

HYDERABAD:  A 43-year-old woman admitted at Osmania General Hospital, awaiting a liver transplantation, lost out on a crucial opportunity as the hospital ran out of preservative solution needed to preserve the organs while being transported from one point to another. Two kidneys and a liver were harvested from a brain dead person at a private hospital. Patients, who are in need of organ transplantation get enrolled in the state government’s Jeevandhan programme.

As per their number in the waiting list, organs are allotted. A patient’s quest for organs to undergo transplantation do not end if organs are harvested from a donor.  Blood groups and other factors should match too. “It is that crucial opportunity that the patient at OGH missed out on,” sources said.  

One of the harvested kidneys was sent to a patient in another private hospital.  The second kidney and liver were allotted to patients at Osmania General Hospital.  The liver transplantation for the woman at OGH was scheduled for Wednesday.  “However, OGH ran out of preservative solution called HTK which is used while transporting the harvested organs from one hospital to another and the liver transplantation could not be performed.  If the preservative solution was available, the transplant surgery could have been taken up,” sources said.  Lack of basic resource at the hospital led to wastage of the organ as it went unutilised.

In fact, it is learnt that kidney was transported to OGH as some government doctors convinced private hospitals to part with some of the preservative solution. “Around a litre of the preservative solution is needed to preserve a kidney while transporting. While five to six litres is required to transport liver,” sources said.   OGH’s superintendent Dr GVS Moorthy did not respond to repeated calls.