Transplant Surgeon eager for introduction of cadaveric surgery at GPHC

Jul 22, 2018 News

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Even as the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] basks in the glory of successfully expanding its Kidney Transplant programme to offer paired exchanged kidney transplant surgeries, talks have already commenced about expanding the programme even further.
Kidney Transplant Surgeon, Dr. Kishore Persaud, has expressed his eagerness to see a move in this direction brought to fruition at the soonest possible time. The expansion which was alluded to at a press conference on Friday at the public hospital is that of cadaveric kidney transplant surgeries.
Cadaver is a medical terminology which refers to a deceased body. Cadaveric surgery therefore means the use of organs of a brain-dead person for the purpose of transplant.
This practice is not by any means innovative as it has been occurring in several countries for years.
It is, therefore, the expectation of Dr. Persaud that Guyana would shortly join the bandwagon in hopes of catering to even more kidney transplant surgeries. “It is my dream to do cadaveric transplant here in Guyana,” said Dr. Persaud at Friday’s press conference.
He, however, informed that moving ahead in this direction will require legislative moves at the Government level through the Ministry of Public Health.
But even with legislative blessings, Dr. Persaud revealed that such a programme would require an immense amount of preparation before it materialises. Adopting a cadaveric kidney transplant programme, he said, is an intricate undertaking but has been proven to be successful in countries where it has been introduced.
“You take brain dead patients who want to donate their kidneys and this can help our situation,” said Dr. Perasud.
With such a programme in place, he is convinced that the GPHC can help to address the situation which currently exists whereby some patients are unable to find suitable matches to facilitate needed kidney transplant surgery.
Helping to advance the conversation on the importance of having legislation in place to harvest organs was earlier this year pushed by the United States-based George Subraj Family Foundation.
The Foundation, which was founded by the late Guyana-born philanthropist, George Subraj, is one that has been lending its support to Guyana especially in the area of health care for a number of years.
As part of its support to the local health sector, the Foundation, now headed by Subraj’s wife, Gloria, and children, Tony and Jasmine, has been continuing the advocacy for Guyana to implement an organs harvesting system.
The principals of the Foundation see this move as particularly important if Guyana is to retain a sustainable transplant programme.
In February representatives of the Foundation met with officials of the Ministry of Public Health on the issue.
Among those engaged in the discussion on the Foundation side were reputable Transplant Surgeon, Dr. Stephen Guy, of the Drexel University Medical School in the United States.
The Subraj Foundation has been instrumental in helping Guyana undertake a number of kidney and corneal transplants. For the latter surgical procedure, the Subraj Foundation has been able to furnish Guyana [the GPHC] with corneas from the United States.
But the representatives of the Foundation are convinced that Guyana could be able to harvest its own corneas and other organs too, for transplantation once legislation is in place to facilitate this.
“All along we believe that Guyana can sustain itself and that would be possible if we were to get working on a legislation to start to do organ harvesting locally, not just for cornea, not just for kidney but hopefully for everything [organs],” said Tony Subraj.
Speaking of the moves in this direction, Dr. Guy said, that he, through the Subraj Foundation, will be willing to lend his expertise to Guyana.
“On the surface, it seems relatively straightforward…when a person passes away from a stroke or trauma. In the United States and most of the countries in Europe they are considered brain dead and that is one of the things that we are looking to find out if that will work here.”
He pointed out that although a person is declared legally dead, harvesting organs requires that their body be kept alive complete with a beating heart. This is imperative if the organs are to be useful to another body in need of them.
But putting such a programme in motion would require legislative backing even for the simple process of harvesting corneas which, according to Dr. Guy, does not require that the body be kept alive.
“Corneas don’t need to have a beating heart to remove them. So the person could have already passed, their heart could have stopped beating, I think up to 12 hours after, and you can to take the cornea. So I think this is the first place Guyana can start in harvesting organs…setting up an eye bank,” Dr. Guy said.
He is convinced that if the suitable infrastructure and personnel for the harvesting of organs are in place, it could essentially help to bolster GPHC’s kidney transplant programme.

 

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