95 green corridors set up in Pune in last 4 years, highest in state

Managing green corridors, specially created to transport vital organs, during peak traffic hours can be a challenge. However, Pune leads other parts of the state in smooth and timely delivery of organs with 95 green corridors set up in the last four years.

From 2015 till date, a total of 169 green corridors were set up in the state, with 95 in Pune, 40 in Mumbai, 20 in Aurangabad and 14 in Nagpur, Dr Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, director of the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation told The Indian Express.

A green corridor is a cleared out special road route, created for an ambulance that transports organs meant for transplant at the hospital. Organs have a short preservation time and studies have shown that the shorter the wait between retrieval and transplant the better the odds for a successful surgery.

Increasing awareness about organ donation and the need to save lives have seen concerted efforts between hospital authorities, zonal transplant coordination centres and traffic authorities. Sarang Avhad, who heads the anti-encroachment department of the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority, was the DCP Traffic in Pune when the first green corridor was set up in August 2015 to transport a heart from Pune’s Jehangir hospital to Mumbai’s Fortis hospital.

“The doctors’ team in the ambulance needs complete and free access to transport the organ and to ensure this, we chalk out a detailed plan of the route and inform the control room as to which signals need to be stopped. There has to be a smooth coordination,” Avhad said. Pankaj Deshmukh, the present DCP Traffic Pune, said that residents have shown tremendous faith in Pune traffic police. “The distance between Jehangir hospital or Ruby Hospital and the airport has been covered under seven minutes on many occasions,” Deshmukh said.

Aarti Gokhale, central coordinator of the Pune ZTCC, said 90 organs were transported either from within the city to other places or from other places to Pune via green corridors. “A total of 38 hearts, 48 livers and four lungs were transported during this period . Of this, 25 hearts were transplanted in Pune hospitals between 2015 and June 2019,” Gokhale said.

Guidelines for organ donation, retrieval

The Regional Organ and Tissue Transport Organisation — State Organ and Tissue Transport Organisation (ROTTO-SOTTO) expert committees for kidney, liver, heart, lungs, hand and critical care have laid down guidelines for donation, retrieval and distribution of organs. The critical care team has spelled out procedures for the certification of brain stem death and maintenance of potential donors, Rahul Pandit, co-chair of ROTTO told The Indian Express. Dr Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, director of ROTTO, said that intensivists in the Intensive and Critical Care Units play key roles in organ donations since the first step is identification of a potential brain stem death donor. “We hope that the ROTTO-SOTTO guidelines will bring clarity in the critical area,” Gajiwala said, adding that the draft guidelines have been sent to the state directorate of health services.