GUWAHATI, June 21? For those who are sceptic about the talents and commitment of the people of the NE region for doing something remarkable, here is a 56-year-old man from Assam to make them banish all their scepticism. He is Dr Sarbeswar Sahariah, who hails from Tengabari Road, Mangaldai. Dr Sahariah has made an enviable record of performing about 2,500 kidney transplant operations at various centres in the country. This is probably the largest number of kidney transplantation done by a single surgeon in the country. Dr Sahariah, after doing his MBBS from the Guwahati Medical College (GMC) in 1967 occupying the fourth position among the toppers, received training in the Post Graduate Medical Institute (PGI), Chandigarh in the field of organ transplantation.
There, he himself performed and assisted in performing over 100 kidney transplant operations. He, also to his credit, has a record of about 5,000 surgeries for vascular access for haemodialysis, which included arteriovenous shunts, arteriovenous fistula, implantation of vascular grafts and placements of peritoneal catheter for continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. Besides, Dr Sahariah had performed or assisted in performing eight cadaver kidney transplant operations during his stay at the PGI Chandigarh, till 1981, he said.
Presently based at Hyderabad, Dr Sahariah, father of two children, so far worked for about 23 hospitals located in various places of the country like Bangalore, New Delhi, Srinagar, Vizagpatnam, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Wardha. Dr Sahariah also underwent a training in the field of transplant immunology under Prof K Tauji at the Tokai University School of Medicine, Japan, in 1985. Besides, more than 40 of his papers on kidney transplantation and renal problems published in various national and international journals of repute, Dr Sahariah has the distinction also of performing the first cadaver donor renal transplant in Andhra Pradesh. Subsequently, he also performed four more cadaver transplants. He is now associated with the Chandigarh PGI cadaver transplant programme.
Dr Sahariah also performed the first laparoscopic donor nephrectomy of the country in 1998, besides being the first kidney transplant expert in the country who performed renal transplantation in a rural-based medical college hospital (Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha, in 2000). A former vice president of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation as well as an ex-council member of the Asian Society of Transplantation, Dr Sahariah was recently selected by the International Transplant Society as one of its members.
Associated also with the Global Hospital and Organ Transplant Institute, Hyderabad, the only centre in the country which has been accorded with the recognition for multi-organ transplantation by the Government of India, Dr Sahariah has been planning to start kidney transplantation programme in the city?s International Hospital within the next six to eight month?s time. He is promoter consultant of the International Hospital.
Dr Sahariah, who had been to the city in connection with his plan concerning the International Hospital, a few days back, told The Assam Tribune that if his plan could be materialised that would immensely benefit the NE patients suffering from kidney problems by removing all the troubles of undertaking long travels, staying outside for quite long periods and thus spending hefty sums of their hard earned money.
Moreover, more people from the lower income groups would be able to go for such transplantations, as, the cost of such feats would come down to between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 2 lakh, the half of the amount a patient from the NE region has to spend outside the State for such surgical remedies, he said. However, Dr Sahariah?s mission is to spread the kidney transplant facility all over the country so that the common people can reap the benefit of the highly advanced surgical operations to prolong their life span. Besides, he has also undertaken a task to develop and popularise cadaver organ donation (post-death organ donation).
In India, he said, between 80,000 and 1,00,000 persons, on an average, develop kidney failure every year. Against such a backdrop, only about 1,000 kidney transplants are done in the country in a year. A small percentage of the rest of the patients could survive for a short time on dialysis, while most of the patients die without being offered any proper treatment, he regretted. Non-availability of organs has also been posing a serious problem for not only India but for the whole of the world, in matters of meeting the demand for organ transplantation. This has necessitated the cadaver organ transplantation. But, against the 70 per cent to 75 per cent cadaver organ transplantation in the western countries, only one to two per cent of such transplantation is done in the country. Popularising cadaver donation is the only way out to save many a life, Dr Sahariah said.
Cadaver eye donation in Sri Lanka is so popular today that the country is now in a position to supply corneas for transplantation all over the world, he said, citing an example of popularisation of cadaver organ donation. Commenting on the kidney patients of the NE region who visit hospitals outside the State, Dr Sahariah said that around 200 such patients from the region visit outside hospitals every month, according to a rough estimate. Of the kidney failure cases of the region, about ten per cent develop due to underlying kidney stone disease. This is because of the quality of drinking water in the region, Dr Sahariah said.