OCHRI skin bank on verge of closure, may shift to GMCH

NAGPUR: City’s only skin bank at the Orange City Hospital and Research Institute (OCHRI) started in 2014 is on the verge of closure. The hospital is finding it difficult to maintain the bank mainly due to two reasons — huge recurring expenses involved in maintaining the skin round the clock for 365 days and due to fewer donations.
The bank had stopped procuring the skin since August last year.As the donated skin have been used regularly for burn patients, now skin remain only for two patients. Once this skin is used the hospital will close the bank.
The skin bank was set up under a tripartite agreement between the hospital, the Rotary Club of Nagpur and the National Burns Centre (NMC), Mumbai. The Rotary Club had taken up all the expenses for the equipment while the NBC had provided the technical guidance for collecting the skin, storing it and using it for burn patients.
The agreement also had a clause that the recurring expenses for maintaining the bank would be equally borne by the OCHRI and the Rotary Club.
Dr Anup Marar, medical director OCHRI, told TOI that this clause, however, could not be followed. “The hospital spent over Rs36 lakh for maintaining the bank while the club did not contribute its share. Now, we are finding it hard to pool in money for electricity and other maintenance charges. It is completely impractical to maintain very few skin with such high maintenance cost. We haven’t got any response from the Rotary Club despite writing to it about the issue,” he said.
In a ray of hope, the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) president Dr Vibhawari Dani held discussion with the dean of Government Medical College and Hospital Dr Sajal Mitra about setting a new skin bank in the college or taking up the OCHRI bank. The dean has in-principle agreed to setting up a bank but he told TOI that he was yet to discuss the issue with the Rotary Club and OCHRI.
Rotary Club president Kapil Bahri told TOI that GMCH had yet not approached the club for any negotiations about the project. However, Dr Dani is quite keen on GMCH having the bank at GMCH and is weighing possibilities of having a new bank or shifting the OCHRI bank.