First of its kind bone bank in south Tamil Nadu inaugurated at GRH

Minister for Health and Family Welfare M Subramanian has inaugurated a bone bank, the first of its kind facility in the southern region of Tamil Nadu, at Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai on Tuesday. Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister P Moorthy and Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan were present on the occasion.

The bone bank was set up at a cost of Rs 40 lakh. The Minister also inaugurated a cobalt-60 therapy machine at regional cancer centre at a cost of Rs 3.1 crore and also a spine clinic and terrace gardening at trauma care centre in Madurai. He also inaugurated the facility of prenatal yoga for pregnant women at the Urban Primary Health Centre in Sellur.

The existence of bone bank in Madurai is a real boon for the poor and needy patients especially of South Tamil Nadu, the Minister said.

Bone banking is a process of procuring, processing and preserving the bones, which could be used for various treatments. With the increase in incidence of high velocity injuries and advancements in cancer management, the need for bone grafts and tissue allograft is on the rise. Procurement of grafts could be done from either a living donor or a deceased donor after getting prior informed consent from the donor or the closest relative of the donor.

Living donors chiefly comprise of patients, who undergo joint replacement surgery or amputation surgeries. Grafts from deceased donors could be harvested within 12 - 24 hours from the time of death.

Earlier, the Health Minister released the rank list for students, who applied for paramedical degree courses -2021-22. A total of 64,900 students applied for admissions to 19 paramedical courses through online. While a total number of 2,276 seats exist in Government medical colleges, 13,832 seats allotted by government in self-financed or private medical colleges. Now, the applicants could access www.tnhealth.tn.gov.in and also through www.tnmedicalsection.org. Further, he said online counseling for the special category including the differently abled would be held on December 22 and subsequently for the general category.

On the much awaited AIIMS Hospital project in Madurai, he said Chief Minister MK Stalin is keenly interested in bringing up the facility. Stalin had already met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and forwarded a series of letters stressing the need to expedite the project. Over the last six months, Subramanian along with the Health Secretary went to Delhi four times for the project, which is expected to take off soon.

Madurai Collector S Aneesh Sekhar, Dean of Madurai Medical College A Rathinavel and others were present during the inauguration.