PESHAWAR: The Institute of Kidney Diseases, Hayatabad Medical Complex, will seek permission from the government to sponsor the renal transplant patients from the time of their registration so that they can receive complete cashless services under Sehat Card Plus programme.

Presently, the patients pay Rs150,000 for investigations prior to undergoing renal transplants as under the programme the patients get free services from the time of hospitalisation.

IKD has resumed renal transplants after a gap of two years due to stoppage of procedures following retirement of transplant surgeon Prof Asif Malik. The institute carried out the first transplant on a 22-year-old Afghan patient last week under the supervision of Dr Saeed Akhtar, head of Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute, Lahore.

IKD has signed a memorandum of understanding with Dr Saeed under which he would assist the local surgeons to conduct renal transplants.

Presently, renal transplant patients have to bear investigation expenses

Urologist Dr Fazal Manan, focal person for the kidney transplants at IKD, told Dawn that they would carry out next surgery after a month on another Afghan patient at the institute. He said that the first patient was rapidly recovering as the institute put in place the required infrastructure for operation and staff had already been trained at the premier institutions of the country.

He said that the transplants of Afghan patients or non-residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were conducted under institution-based practice (IBP) and the patients were charged accordingly.

The residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are treated on Sehat Card Plus for which the government allows Rs1.4 million. Under Sehat Card Plus programme, the patient are sponsored when they are admitted.

“However, the patients also require other tests like tissue typing, CT angiogram and cross-matching which are not conducted in the province and we want to conduct the same in Islamabad. Investigations are very important to determine fitness of the patient. We have about five local and as many Afghans patients and their evaluation is in progress,” said Dr Fazal Manan.

He said that the patients treated on Sehat Card also required one year post-transplant treatment. “Patients are evaluated by ethical committees and approved by the Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority. We will request the government to approve the cost of investigation of the patients on Sehat Card,” he added.

The institute has so far performed 300 renal transplants but it halted the procedure when Prof Asif Malik retired. Also, the Covid-19 was one of the causes of delay in resumption of the procedures.

Health officials said that the government already included free renal transplants in Sehat Card and so far provided free treatment to 12 million patients, costing Rs29.5 billion since 2016. The procedures included 58 renal transplants, bulk of which was carried out at Rehman Medical Institute (RMI) under a team headed by transplant surgeon Prof Taqi Taufeeq Khan.

IKD director Prof Mazhar Khan said that patient would be sent home after full recovery. “The Afghan patient received kidney from his brother and we did the procedure after fulfillment of all legal formalities,” he said. He added that renal transplants were resumed after approval of the Board of Governors and the government.

“Initially, we have planned to do one case per month. We have separate ward for renal transplant, two operation theatres and two intensive care units. We have procured state-of-the-art machines in addition to signing agreements with other hospitals for training of staff to be able to achieve results of international standard,” he said.

Prof Mazhar said that IKD wanted to continue the procedures on consistent basis for which it demanded funds from the government.” Health Minister Taimur Jhagra has agreed to ensure the desired level of funds and cooperation,” he added.

He said that the institute wanted to scale up public awareness among people regarding donation of organs so that transplants could be carried out as per requirement of the MTRA besides discouraging the illegal procedures in the province.

“At a later stage, we would like to extend the renal transplant services to other hospitals of the province and impart training to doctors and healthcare providers,” said Prof Mazhar.

Published in Dawn,June 13th, 2022