Four facilities allowed corneal transplant operation

Three of the facilities are public run while one is a private facility

PESHAWAR: In a first, the provincial medial transplant regulator has cleared four ophthalmology departments to conduct corneal transplants in the province.

This decision was taken in a meeting of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Medical Transplantation Regularity Authority (MTRA) in Peshawar. The authority reviewed applications by different health institutions, seeking permission to conduct the transplants.

Officials privy to the meeting stated that the authority had approved applications from a number of medical teaching institutions (MTI) including the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), the Pakistan Institute of Community Ophthalmology (PICO) at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), and the Rehman Medical Complex (RMI) for a period of one year.

“Initially, the authority has approved applications for these facilities for one year,” said an official who is privy to the developments. The official added that the health facilities have been told to deposit the requisite registration fees for their hospitals and transplant surgeon.

“These hospitals and institutions are the first institutions across K-P who have been approved for registration by the MTRA for corneal transplant after the passage of the MTRA Act,” the official said, adding that the hospitals were directed to immediately establish their own eye banks in line with the rules of the MTRA.

Last month, the MTRA had amended rules for registering Corneal Transplant Centres in the province, including recognised transplant centres as well as recognised transplant surgeons registered with the MTRA.



Corneal Transplant Centres must have a committee for evaluating transplants which will be notified by the MTRA apart from having a transplant coordinator. Moreover, the transplant centres must have their own ‘eye bank’ (corneal storage facility) with its linkages nationally and internationally registered with MTRA.

Further, transplant evaluation committees should include transplant surgeon, ophthalmologist or surgeon eligible to conduct a transplant but not conducting transplants at the same hospital.

Last months, the Institute of Kidney Diseases (IKD) carried out its first kidney transplant under MTRA act. MTRA provides regulations for removal, storage and transplant of human organs, tissues and cells for therapeutic purposes in the province.

The authority comprises 10 members including K-P chief minister, secretary for health, transplant specialists at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Institute of Kidney Diseases, gastroenterologists and haematologists from HMC and the Ayub Teaching Hospital in Abbottabad as well as representatives of a private transplant set-up.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2018.