CHENNAI: For Saravanan and his wife, a daily wage couple from Tiruvannamalai, commuting between the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital to process the kidney transplant procedure for their 12-year-old son is proving to be a tough task.

“My son, Jagdish, diagnosed with renal failure is undergoing dialysis at the hospital. This is the 56th dialysis. A daily wager like me had to spend about `1,000 for each trip. I have registered in the cadaver organ transplant programme and for any test, I have to carry him to the RGGGH, which is extremely difficult during the time of the dialysis,” says Saravanan.

He is not a loner as there are hundreds of parents who narrate similar stories. For, the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Egmore, the specialised centre for treating children in the government sector, is now in a dire need of performing organ transplants, starting with the renal transplant as hundreds of kids with chronic organs disease are now being referred to other hospitals.

Speaking to Express, a senior doctor said the hospital treats about the 1,000 new cases every year with kidney related problems, in which about 100 children come with end stage disease, requiring either transplant or dialysis. Since there is lack of a dedicated pediatric urology department in the hospital, the children are being referred to RGGGH for transplant, which is proving to be a tough task for poor parents, who travel to the hospital from other districts for free treatment as this is the referral centre even for neighbouring states. At RGGGH the children are made to wait with the adult list and the wait becomes too long.

“The hospital may be poised to perform organs transplants in the near future. We have sent a proposal to State Health Department for starting a renal transplant unit six month ago and there is progress,” said Director and Superintendent of the Hospital Dr S Sundari.

The first pediatric hospital in the state, set up at RGGGH in 1948, was shifted to the present campus in 1968 after its brief existence in Arni House Compound in 1963. With more than 13 specialities, the hospital caters to 2,000 out-patients and 200 in-patients a day.

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