Corona effect: Transplant surgery suspended at Chandigarh PGIMER

PGIMER in Chandigarh has suspended all its transplant surgeries due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and sent all the patients who were admitted for transplant to their home. The PGIMER hospital is now only providing emergency services.

Chandigarh: The scare of coronavirus disease has now led to a complete shut down of transplant surgeries and OPD services in Chandigarh's Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research hospital (PGIMER).

The PGIMER hospital, which has suspended all the transplant since March 19, is now only providing emergency services.

The hospital is famous in India for different types of transplants and on an average, in a month it used conduct 25-30 transplants but due to the Coronavirus pandemic that has afflicted the country, all transplants have been put on hold.

The patients who were admitted in the hospital for the transplant surgery discharged from the hospital.

The PGIMER hospital in Chandigarh conducts the higher number of transplants in the country be it a pancreas transplant or kidney transplant or liver transplant or any other part of the body.

Patients from all over the country come here but all other medical treatments are on halt due to COVID-19N spread.

While talking to ETV Bharat, the Head of Department of Renal Transplant, Professor Dr Ashish Sharma informed that after the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic, the administration of the hospital has decided to not do transplants for the time being. We need to keep patients secure and stable for some time through the life support system and dialysis for a transplant which is not possible as the medical equipment is not sufficient to deal with the pandemic.

The PGIMER hospital sees around 250 kidney transplants per year and other than 80 transplants which are done with donated organs.

Around 350 transplants of different body parts are done here per year. All of which is currently on hold.

All the emergency services will continue as usual in all the emergency areas.

India has reported 6634 Active Cases of coronavirus till Friday and deaths reported so far are 242.

According to official data provided by the Ministry of Health, as many as 652 people infected by the virus have been discharged after receiving treatment.