It has has come up at a cost of ₹ 40 lakh, says Minister
Madurai
Health Minister Ma. Subramanian on Tuesday inaugurated a bone bank at Government Rajaji Hospital and a Cobalt-60 therapy facility at the Regional Cancer Centre at Balarengapuram here on Tuesday.
Accompanied by Minister for Commercial Taxes P. Moorthi and Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan and Madurai Collector S. Aneesh Sekhar, Mr. Subramanian inaugurated the bone bank, the first of its kind in any government or private hospital in south Tamil Nadu. A similar facility was recently opened at the Cancer Institute in Chennai.
The Minister said that the new facility had come up at a cost of ₹ 40 lakh at the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology.
“With an increase in incidences of high velocity injuries and advancements in cancer management, the need for bone grafts and tissue allografts has increased,” Mr. Subramanian said. This would greatly help the poor patients from southern districts, he added.
Bones could be grafted from a living donor or a deceased person.
Among the living donors were patients who underwent joint replacement or total knee replacement surgeries or amputation surgeries, said Dr. V.R. Ganesan, Professor of Orthopaedics.
The bones that were grafted from deceased persons within 24 hours would processed and preserved with deep freezing facility, he said.
Such processed and preserved bones could be used for cancer patients. Tissue allografts were done in conditions like spinal fusion surgeries, multi-ligament reconstruction, addressing bone defects in revision joint replacement surgeries, post-traumatic bone loss reconstruction.
In the absence of a bone bank, hospitals were dependent on bone substitutes which were inferior to allografts yet very expensive.
“The bone bank is a boon to the people of south Tamil Nadu,” said Dr. Ganesan.
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