A team of doctors from city-based Down Town Hospital and Yashoda Hospitals of Hyderabad has created history by successfully performing the first ever liver transplant in the north-eastern region.
The surgery, which took ten hours, was conducted on September 14 at Down Town Hospital and it was made public today at a press conference organised here by the two hospitals.
Joydev Das (56), who hails from Goalpara and is working in the social welfare department, was the patient and transplant recipient. He had been suffering from chronic liver disease (CLD) for the past two years. His wife, Ranju Das (44), donated a part of her liver.
The transplant team was led by Dr P Balachandran Menon, chief liver transplant surgeon of Yashoda Hospitals, along with Dr Pranjal Deka, liver transplant surgeon of Down Town Hospital.
Following the operation, both the recipient and the donor were shifted to their respective recovery rooms. The donor, Ranju Das, was discharged from the hospital on September 21.
Joydev Das, the recipient, who is also associated with various local football clubs of lower Assam and was a known soccer player of Goalpara, was discharged in a healthy condition on October 3.
Both the recipient and the donor were present during today’s media interaction.
“It is a proud moment for Down Town Hospital… Liver diseases require prevalent screening, and early intervention to save lives is the immediate need in the North East. Liver transplant is needed to save lives, especially in cases of liver cirrhosis and cancer. Down Town Hospital, along with Yashoda Hospitals, has taken this initiative to work together to provide liver transplant surgery services at Guwahati. An MoU was also signed in this regard. It lays the foundation for a big programme with liver transplant and advanced hepatobiliary surgeries in the north-eastern region. Patients of not only Assam but also from other parts of the North East and neighbouring countries are likely to benefit from transplants here,” said Dr NN Dutta, CMD of Down Town Hospital.
Dr GS Rao, Managing Director of Yashoda Group of Hospitals, said that over two lakh people lose their lives every year in India due to liver diseases.
“One out of every five Indian suffers from liver problems. The most common causes of liver failure are chronic alcoholism, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, obesity-related liver diseases, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, diabetes, etc. In North East India, more than 15,000 people die of liver diseases every year. About 2,000 people need liver transplantation every year in this region. Very few of these people get liver transplant and that too by travelling long distances to unknown places. In order to help the local patients here, Yashoda Hospitals and Down Town Hospital have joined hands to provide the most advanced liver transplant surgeries in this region with an existing world-class liver transplant centre at Down Town Hospital,” said Dr Rao.
He also called upon people of the North East to use facilities available in this region instead of spending huge amounts of money to receive medical treatment in other states.
The recipient, Joydev Das, expressed his gratitude to the team of doctors from both the hospitals who performed the transplant and also thanked his wife who acted as the donor. “I am alive today only due to my wife and due to the effort of the team of doctors from both the hospitals,” he said.
Ranju Das said that she never hesitated even once to act as the donor. “Today I am very happy. My advice to everyone is that there is no need to be apprehensive of becoming a donor,” said Ranju, who is also the mother of two kids, a girl studying in Class XI and a boy in Class VI.
