Jaipur: In a significant development, doctors at the Sawai Mansingh Hospital in Rajasthan capital Jaipur received the first skin donation for the newly set up skin bank with a 50-yr-old woman declared brain dead at a private hospital donating her skin, officials said. Anita Goyal, a resident of Vaishali Nagar, was admitted to a private hospital in Jaipur where doctors declared her brain dead.
After counselling by the doctors at the hospital, the family agreed to donate Anita's skin. Accordingly, a team of five doctors from SMS Hospital reached the private hospital and carried out the surgical procedure to preserve the skin in the skin bank, Dr Rakesh Jain, Head of the Department of Plastic Surgery Department of Sawai Mansingh Hospital, said.
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Dr Rakesh Jain said that the skin donations could save many lives in view of the frequent burn injuries reported at the hospital wherein 40 to 50 per cent of burn injuries are seen. Burn injuries result in the loss of protein and electrolytic fluid from the patient's body which often leads to the patient's death due to skin damage.
With skin transplants, such patients can get a new lease of life, Dr Jain said. Significantly, authorities at the super-speciality centre of the Sawai Mansingh Hospital in Jaipur set up the first-of-its-kind skin bank in February this year. The human skin can be kept safe in this bank from minus 20 degrees to minus 70 degrees. This would benefit the acid victims and the patients burnt in an accident. More importantly, the skin can be preserved for surgeries for six months to three years, an official said.