City see second cadaver bone donation of the year

Mumbai: The weekend saw Mumbai’s second cadaver bone donation of the year, marking an upward trend in this area after relatives of a 74-year-old brain dead donated his bones along with kidneys on Saturday evening at Jaslok Hospital.

In January this year, a relative of a Spanish brain-dead woman had donated her bones. Before that, Mumbai saw a bone donation in August 2022 after a gap of three years.

ZTCC started emphasising on bone donations and other tissue donations last year by encouraging the transplant coordinators to sensitise people about these donations.

“We have instructed the transplant coordinators to speak to relatives and counsel them about tissue and bone donations. It seems to be working and the numbers are slowly picking up,” said Dr Bharat Shah, general secretary, Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC).

A donated bone is for patients who lose bones due to bone cancer, necrosis, reconstruction surgeries and fusion procedures.

“There was a time when people didn’t know that hearts can be donated. Donation of bone is rare and so is skin donation. We are also speaking to hospitals to help us in spreading awareness about the same,” said Dr Shah.

Dr. Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, who earlier headed the Tata Memorial Hospital’s tissue bank, said the city is also seeing more bone donations as there is a new tissue bank in Goregaon and a dedicated doctor for the retrieval.

“”We didn’t have a good set-up with a retrieval team like we have for other organs. Now that we have an established bank and a doctor for the retrieval, we will see more bone donations. Bone donations are extremely helpful because there are many orthopaedic conditions such as revision hip replacement surgeries, reconstructive surgeries, spine surgeries and even dental surgeries that require bone,” she said.

Meanwhile, the city has seen 12 cadaver organ donations so far. After witnessing a dip in cadaver organ donations in Covid-19 pandemic, in 2022, the city saw 47 cadaver organ donations. In 2021, the city saw 31 cadaver organ donations.