Maha: Kokilaben Hospital to provide free bone-marrow transplants to marginalized children under Centre's scheme

Mumbai: Kokilaben Hospital in Mumbai would be providing bone-marrow transplant surgery free of cost to children from marginalized communities who are suffering from Thalassemia and Aplastic Anaemia, with the surgery cost being covered under the Centre's pan-India programme 'Thalassemia and Aplastic Anaemia Bal Sewa Yojna'. 

The development comes after Coal India Limited (CIL), the central government-owned coal mining and refining corporation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project with the Kokilaben Hospital, which is one of the nine empanelled hospitals under this nationwide scheme.  

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Usually, a bone marrow transplant surgery costs around Rs 10-12 lakhs. Children who are diagnosed with any of the two illnesses would be given financial assistance of up to Rs10 lakh for performing the bone-marrow transplants under the programme.

Dr Mahendra Kendre, ADHS, blood cell of the State's Directorate of Health Service told Indian Express, "There is a need for more centres to perform bone-marrow transplants for free to save lives of children from poor economic backgrounds. We requested the government to assist us towards this end. In response, the CIL tied up with the hospital for free surgeries."

The requirements for the surgery are that the Thalassemia patient should be under 12 years, need to come from a family with an annual income below Rs 5 lakh, and the patient has to be a transfusion-dependent Thalassemia major. Similarly, the requirement for patients with severe Aplastic anaemia is an annual family income below Rs 8 lakh and their age should be under 18 years. Dr Kendre said, "Patients meeting the criteria can undergo the surgery."

As per state government data, around 11000 health cards have been issued by the health department to Thalassemia patients in Maharashtra, however, the state does not have any data on aplastic anaemia patients. Nearly 9,400 people are diagnosed with aplastic anaemia every year in the country. 

Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder causing less haemoglobin than normal and it requires lifelong repeated blood transfusion along with expensive medical interventions for survival. In Aplastic Anaemia, the body stops producing enough new blood cells. Dr Parth Ganatra, Paediatric Hematology-Oncology, at BJ Wadia Hospital for Children said, "Aplastic Anaemia is a form of bone marrow failure as it fails to produce new blood which is responsible for performing vital functions, including infection control, oxygen transport, and tissue repair following injury. Due to this, the children become more prone to infection and fatigue. In severe cases, they need immediate bone marrow transplants."

Two bone marrow surgeries have been performed by the hospital and three more children have received approval for the life-saving procedure from the CIL's expert panel. Stating that the programme caters to patients from the western region of India, Dr Santosh Shetty, CEO of the hospital said, "Needy patients from across the western part can approach us. They can contact our hospital. After documentation, their requests for the surgery would be submitted to CIL for approval. Background inspections of the applicants would also be done."

The 'Thalassemia Bal Sewa Yojna' was started in 2017 under CIL's CSR, following which Aplastic Anaemia was added to the programme. The other eight hospitals empanelled under this scheme include AIIMS, New (Delhi), CMC (Vellore), Tata Medical Centre (Kolkata), PGIMER (Chandigarh), Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute (New Delhi), SGPGI (Lucknow), Narayan Hrudayalaya (Bangalore) and CMC (Ludhiana). 

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