Dinesh Kamath's news 'National Burns Centre at Airoli needs more skin donors' that was published in Newsband

National Burns Centre at Airoli needs more skin donors

By Dinesh Kamath

Above Picture: National Burns Center at Airoli

NAVI MUMBAI: Doctors in India have to tackle burn cases in quite big number. There are many people who understand the pains of these burnt patients and they don’t hesitate to donate their skins to give relief to such burn victims. But there is still greater need of skin donors since skin donations received are not enough to provide relief to all the burn victims who exist in big number. Owing to there being many burn cases that doctors need to tackle, there is an urgent need of skin harvesting and preservation in cities like Navi Mumbai in particular.

The thing is there are many people who are not aware about this practice of donating skins. They have heard of donations of eyes, kidneys etc but skin donation is still something unheard of for many who reside in Navi Mumbai and outside. People are aware of autograft which is surgical reconstruction of one’s own skin, but they are yet to know about homograft where donated skin is used to provide relief to some other burn victims.  

National Burns Centre at Airoli is doing a wonderful job when it comes to performing of autograft as well as homograft. Dr Sunil Keswani, plastic surgeon and head of National Burns Centre, is a well known figure in this Centre since he was the one who initiated the Skin Bank at the centre in collaboration with the Euro Tissue Bank in Bevervijk, Netherlands. Skin preservation is his idea which he got to know from doctors of foreign countries where preservation of skin has been a common practice since a long time. But for many Indians, this is something new. Skin can be donated after one’s death too if one wishes. The skin bank needs to be informed in advance and the members of this bank then remove the donor’s skin within six hours of his or her death. There is a technical procedure involved and the members of the skin bank are very conversant about this technique.

There are not many skin banks in India. Only few cities have these skin banks and other cities are trying to come up with similar banks. Navi Mumbai is one of the few cities which has a skin bank, thanks to Dr Sunil Keswani, without whose efforts this would not have been possible.