& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Law needed for kidney donation

Says Gonoshasthaya Kendra

Staff Correspondent
Gonoshasthaya Kendra will be able to make kidney transplants and dialysis more affordable if it does not have to navigate through bureaucratic tangles, it said marking the first founding anniversary of Gonoshasthaya Dialysis Center yesterday.
An implementable law should be put in place so that a person can donate kidney if he is willing. VAT, tax should be lifted from the health sector as the services should not be treated as commercial ones, said a presentation.
A hospital before starting its operation gets registered with the
Directorate General of Health Services and then the registration is renewed periodically. The mechanism should be easy, effective and efficient, speakers said at the programme, organised at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in Dhanmondi with Rashed Khan Menon, social welfare minister, as the chief guest.
With support from the government, Gonoshasthaya can reduce the cost of a kidney transplant to only Tk 1.5 lakh.
In the first year of operation, the dialysis centre carried out 63,125 sessions of dialysis on 1,266 patients at a cost of minimum Tk 534 to maximum Tk 2,500. It segregates patients into six
categories from very poor to rich, thus charging them for the services according to their financial status.
About 7.74 percent of the patients who were very poor had been given the dialysis service completely free of charge, according to a press release issued by the centre.
The services are available round the clock. The centre has sustained a loss of Tk 4 crore in one year, but as per an estimation, Gonoshasthaya has saved Tk 11 crore of patients.
A big chunk of the expenditure is on the use of electricity and water and the centre has to pay bills as a commercial enterprise, the hospital said.
A special discussion was held on "Lessons learnt from 63,000 Dialysis". The hospital also awarded four pioneer nephrologists"Gonoshasthaya Sheba Gold Medal" for their contribution to developing kidney care services in Bangladesh.
The medalists are Prof Matiur Rahman, a founder member of National Institute of Kidney Diseases Urology and Transplantation; Harun-ur-Rashid, professor and chief consultant of Kidney Foundation and Research Institute; Prof M A Wahab, transplant surgeon and urologist; and Prof Kamrul Islam, of the urology department, Delta Medical College, Dhaka.
"Anything we do for the first time is difficult," said Prof Matiur Rahman at the programme, while recalling that the very first patient who had kidney transplant in the country had died within months.
Prof MA Wahab requested the government to come up with a law implementable in donating kidneys so that patients don't have to go abroad for such treatment.
Harun-ur-Rashid emphasised the need for preventive measures like detection of diabetes and hyper tension, major reasons for suffering kidney failure if not treated in time and properly.
Prof Kamrul Islam said he had done 518 kidney transplants until now free of charge 106 of them last year. The success rate is very h igh, 92-94 percentequivalentto international standards.
The special guests were Prof Syed Modasser Ali, former member, Executive Committee, WHO, former advisor to the prime minister, Health and Family Welfare and Social Welfare Chairman, Bangladesh Medical Research Council and Dr. Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin, President of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA). Prof Dr Laila Parveen Banu, vice chancellor (acting) of Gono Bishwabidyalay, presided over the programme