Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda has congratulated the Jipmer multi-disciplinary team led by Dr. Dinesh Kumar S, Chief Reconstructive Transplant Surgeon, Dept of Plastic Surgery, which performed a 16-hour surgery to transplant both forearms and hands from a 50 year brain-dead donor to a 16 year-old bilateral below-elbow amputee.

According to a Jipmer release here today, Mr Nadda has conveyed his wishes through Twitter as well. On behalf of the Cabinet Minister, his wife Mallika Nadda, visited JIPMER to see the patient who got benefited from this hand transplant. She personally spoke to the patient through Telemedicine Console in the JIPMER Transplant ICU. She also expressed her appreciation towards the surgical team and leadership of Jipmer Director, Prof. S.C. Parija. She sent her personal wishes appreciating the family of Mrs. Rathinambal – the brain-dead donor – who readily came forward to donate the organs of the lady, even though illiterate and from a poor family. It may be noted that Jipmer has performed its first bilateral Cadaveric hand transplantation free of cost on August 2, 2017. It is the first government institution in the country to achieve this milestone.