Mumbai hospital performs 100 liver transplants in two years

Mumbai's Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital has notched a record of 100 liver transplants since the inception of its state-of-the-art Centre for Liver Transplant in 2013, hospital officials said here on Friday.

This was in sharp contrast to 90 liver transplants carried out in all Mumbai hospitals in the past 18 years, the officials said.

While 15 have been cadaveric donor liver transplants - starting with a young mother whose liver failed due to medicines for treating tuberculosis and her brother donated his liver - the others were a part of the hospital's Living Donor Liver Transplant Programme, said Vinay Kumaran, head of hepatobilliary surgery and liver transplant at the hospital.

Hospital chairperson Tina Ambani said: "People should know that every adult can be an organ donor, during life and death, irrespective of age. I believe we were all born with the ability to change someone's life... Let's not waste it.

"The government, health care institutions and the NGO sector will have to work together to promote organ donation, spread awareness and institute sustainable mechanisms."

In order to mark the achievement, Tina Ambani on Friday felicitated donors and patients at a function in the hospital.

Organs to save lives are in short supply across India and the paucity of brain-dead donors exacerbates the problem.

Annually, around 250,000 patients die of liver failure in India owing to cirrhosis. Over 25,000 patients need a liver transplant every year but only 1,100 actually manage to undergo transplantation.