By Ashish Srivastava

New Delhi, Aug 27 (IANS): More than 600 patients are in queue for their renal surgery and kidney transplant at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). However, their wait may extend till October.

The transplant surgeries in AIIMS would not commence before October, informs the Department of Nephrology of the premier institute on Friday.

S.K, Agarwal, head of the Nephrology Department of the centre-run hospital informed that major elective surgeries are on hold since March and would not commence before October. "Only if it starts," he added.

The last surgery performed in the department was on March 18. Then nation-wide lockdown was imposed, and elective surgeries were put on hold.

Agarwal told that approximately 612 cases of transplants are pending in the Nephrology Department alone. "Of them, 112 cases are from live donation, and 500 are from cadaver list," he informed while breaking up the numbers.

The live donation comes from a donor with two healthy kidneys and may choose to donate one. The cadaver donation comes from someone who has just died.

However, the surgeries have started to resume in many hospitals.

When asked about the inability to perform the surgeries, Agarwal said that his department is unable to perform surgeries as there is a dearth for potential Covid-free spaces in the hospital.

"We still have many Covid positive patients in main hospitals other than dedicated Covid trauma centres. Intermittently many patients are found positive in Covid negative areas. So basically, we do not have potential Covid-free areas in main hospital," he informed.

Agarwal also said that the Anesthesia team is involved in Covid care, so they are not taking part in major elective surgeries and transplants.

Besides, the number of beds in the Department of Nephrology has also decreased which may cause issue in post-surgery care. "Some beds from our department have been taken for the Covid pool," Agarwal added.