VSMMC conducts first-ever deceased organ retrieval

The Renal Center of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center has scored a milestone in the recent conduct of the first-ever deceased organ retrieval in the country.

Last January 31, the VSMMC transplant team performed the first-ever organ retrieval from a deceased 32-year-old male patient, identity withheld, who was admitted to the institution after suffering severe brain injury reportedly because of a motorcycle accident last January 29.

Dr. Alvin Roxas, VSMMC transplant surgeon, said that the patient was pronounced brain dead by the attending physician of the Neurosurgery Department at 9:30 p.m. of January 31.

"This is the first time we conducted an organ retrieval effort from a deceased donor in Cebu City," Roxas said.

He added that efforts to get consent for the donation of his kidneys proved very productive as the patient's immediate family agreed to the procedure which has to benefit two other patients suffering from end-stage renal failure currently awaiting the transplant.

The kidneys were taken to Manila since no suitable recipients of the said organs were available in Cebu City at the time of retrieval. It was learned that the two patient-recipients there are confined at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute.

The operation was in consonance to the thrust of the Department of Health on promoting organ donation in compliance with Republic Act 7170, otherwise known as the "Organ Donation Act of 1991".

The VSMMC has recently organized its organ retrieval efforts in coordination with the Human Organ Preservation Effort of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute and the Renal Disease Control Program of the DOH.

The VSMMC transplant team will now be on 24-hour standby should there be other families who would entertain the idea of donating the organs of their deceased loved ones to be able to save some other lives.

The transplant team is also looking forward to the establishment of a counterpart of HOPE and the installation of a transplant coordinator at VSMMC, more intensive organ retrieval effort and maintenance of regional registry where patients can enroll to await a cadaveric donor. - Gregg M. Rubio