Does premier medical centre need a surgical healing touch?

A team of surgeons and doctors from Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow and the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in New Delhi performed a liver transplant on an 18-year-old girl on February 12, 2022. The Centre for Hepatobiliary Diseases and Transplantation, a state-of-the-art ₹100-crore facility inaugurated by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on October 15, 2018, has failed to perform even one liver transplant per year. Furthermore, many of the patients seeking transplants are from underprivileged backgrounds, so financial assistance is also necessary, that’s why liver transplant surgeries in PGI are rare.” Acknowledging the situation wherein only three liver transplants were done in five years, Professor Radha Krishna Dhiman, director of SGPGIMS, said he remains optimistic about the future of liver transplants at the institute. We will continue performing liver transplants at this premier institution.” Repeated calls by HT to head of the department of gastro surgery Dr Anu Behari for a comment on the issue went unanswered. DEPT OF GASTRO SURGERY TEAM Besides Dr Anu Behari, the other members of the department of gastro surgery team include Professor Ashok Kumar, Professor Rajneesh Kumar Singh, Professor Ashok Kumar II, Additional Professor Supriya Sharma, Associate Professor Rahul, Associate Professor Ashish Kumar Singh, Assistant Professor Sinivas Biraveley, Assistant Professor Yash Vardan Sinha and Assistant Professor Kush Satyen Parikh.