Chandigarh: The Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research here closed the year 2017 with a record number of 44 cadaver organ donations, up from 27 in 2016 and 26 in 2015. The kin of a patient from Nabha in Punjab were the latest to consent for organ donation of their dear one on December 29, thereby, giving a 'gift of life' to two chronic patients and the 'gift of sight' to another two, PGIMER Director, Prof Jagat Ram told reporters here. "Kidneys were the most widely donated organ. The other major organs harvested from deceased persons included liver, heart, and pancreas. For the first time, transplant of lungs was also conducted during 2017.
The cornea transplantation programme was also equally robust," he said. Amitabh Avasthi, deputy director (administration), PGIMER, said the much-awaited 250-bed hospital at the PGI is likely to be functional in June 2018. Asked to comment why rates of some medicines were high in the emergency area of the premier institute, Avasthi said, "whenever we give shops to a private bidder, it has to be on the basis of an open tender, once it is based on that open tender, the rates so quoted are to be honoured, that is how the process works.
He said all these aspects were in public domain. Avasthi added "we were thinking to have perhaps more AMRIT (affordable medicines) shops in trauma center area and the emergency area, but it was halted briefly because our own pharmacy is coming up in this area only. We always want it to be an open competition, we always want that the consumers and the patients should have a variety to choose from, it can be our own pharmacy, it can be AMRIT, it can be a private shop inside PGI or outside PGI".
"As far as the emergency area is concerned, we are going to take a step so that patients get medicines at cheaper rates," he said. Prof Jagat Ram said that "we agree that some people may charge a little extra to probably compensate the rent of the shop by that". As far as the progress of PGI's in-house pharmacy goes, Avasthi said, "all the things are tied up except for the fact that we have to have a warehouse at a place which has been identified and that tender is being very shortly floated."
On patient load in the premier hospital, Dr. Vipin Kaushal, Deputy Medical Superintendent, PGIMER, said that it has increased threefold in last 20 years. Kaushal said the hospital's emergency and trauma center's combined bed capacity is 210, "but at any given time we have on an average 500 patients."
