Super Specialty hospital faces crisis in bone marrow transplant unit:Patients wait over a year due to lack of staff

The unit, designed as a life-saving facility for poor patients, is currently operating at half capacity due to a shortage of staff. Despite having 10 beds, the state-of-the-art bone marrow transplant unit at the Super Specialty Hospital often has 2 to 3 beds empty. Currently, 4 patients are admitted, while 8 to 10 patients, including children, are waiting for a transplant. The unit operated under MY Hospital from 2018 to 2022 and was shifted to the Super Specialty Hospital on February 13, 2023. The main problem is that the shortage of staff prevents full utilization of the available beds. To run the unit at full capacity, 20 to 25 nurses are needed, but only 10 to 12 are currently working. With adequate staffing, the unit could perform 30 to 40 bone marrow transplants annually. Many patients have been waiting for over a year for their turn. Unit at a glance: Unit set up by international expert Dr. Prakash Satwani, an international bone marrow transplant specialist originally from Indore and currently working in the USA, says he spent a month in Indore in 2018 to train doctors, nurses, and technical staff when the unit was first established at MY Hospital. The goal was to provide life-saving treatment to poor patients locally. Today, the unit is unable to operate at full capacity, which is concerning. According to Dr. Satwani, trained nursing staff is crucial for running such a complex unit, and the current shortage is affecting transplants. With sufficient staff, the unit’s capacity could be further increased. Fully matched donor, still waiting Shahid Khan from Khadampur village near Bhopal has a 10.5-year-old son suffering from thalassemia major. The boy has received over 100 blood transfusions. His 14-year-old brother is a fully matched donor. Despite the reports now being normal, the transplant cannot take place due to lack of available beds. The family has been trying for the past two years.