PROFILE
‘It is a myth that public hospitals do not perform’
Soumya Viswanathan - Mumbai

On March 27 1997, Dr Vatsala Trivedi performed the first cadaver renal transplant in Maharashtra. Five years later, on August 19 2002, she was a member of the team that conducted the first cadaveric liver transplant in Maharashtra. Head of the Urology department at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (LTMG), Dr Trivedi has so far performed 17 of the 50-odd cadaver transplants done in Mumbai since 1997.

It is a myth that public hospitals do not perform, says an exhilarated Dr Trivedi. “The surgical team maintained international standards while carrying out the liver cadaver transplant and the Rs 1.5 lakh charged for the transplant is a fraction of what private hospitals would charge,” she says.

The LTMG hospital and the entire medical community in the state owes a lot to Dr Trivedi on successfully achieving this goal.

But her ride to the first renal transplant in the state was not an easy one. Soon after the Transplantation of Human Organ Act was passed, the Government of Maharashtra cancelled called for fresh registrations and cancelled the existing ones. Her first step was to get LTMG Hospital registered as a transplant centre. After her persistent efforts, in 1996, LTMG was registered, and soon after she constituted a brain stem death committee.

Then came the actual work of executing the transplant. For this purpose, she chalked out her own protocol. It was then she realised that government approvals apart, there were a host of social, infrastructure and professional issues that needed attention. Between September 1996 to March 1997, there were 12 attempts to perform transplants at LTMG and all of them were unsuccessful not due to medical reasons but due to failure in convincing patients’ relatives, maintaining cadaver, coordination among different departments in hospital, etc. “I had to coordinate with multiple departments and talk to every department personally,” smiles Dr Trivedi.

“Every failure was a learning process,” says Dr Trivedi. Today, Dr Trivedi is proud of the fact that LTMG, being a public hospital, is the most advanced when it comes to cadaver transplants. ‘‘Every one kept talking about conducting cadaver transplant, but it was she who streamlined the process and implemented,’’ says Dr Subhash Salunkhe, Director General of Health Services.

Then came her next milestone - the formation of Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) in 2000. In 98-99, the Directorate of Health Services requested her to prepare a draft proposal for constituting a centralised independent body to maintain and distribute organs in Mumbai. She prepared the draft where she also suggested the guidelines for operating this centralised body to ensure fair distribution of organs. ‘‘After we first attempted a cadaver transplant, there were sporadic cases of such transplants being performed in the city. Hence, we though on the need to have a platform for upgrading public knowledge, infrastructure and skill,’’ she recalls. Dr Trivedi is the general secretary of ZTCC and member of Maharashtra Confederation For Organ Transplant - an advisory body to the state government.

As a general secretary, Dr Trivedi has made it mandatory for the top heads of the entire 13 member hospitals to attend the meetings. In her efforts Dr Trivedi has invited some criticism from people. “People are not happy with the law. If rules are set, you have to follow. If you follow rules it becomes convention.”

To Dr Trivedi, it is the pleasure of work that is greatest. As to why she never looked at the option of private practice, she laughs, “Money was missing from my frontal lobes. Here I handle tremendous work and my liking to remain with patients is fulfilled.” Adds Dr Trivedi, “I get an intellectual kick when my treatment yields results and an emotional kick when the patients go home after recovery.”