Galaxy Care Multispecialty Hospital (GCMH), Pune, became the first hospital in India to start an exclusive ‘uterus transplant OPD’ in the hospital. After carrying out India’s first uterus transplant surgery, it has received applications from around 200 women to undergo uterus transplant surgery.
This exclusive OPD will cater to those willing women who want to undergo uterus transplant by examining the feasibility of the procedure and for these patients a pre-operation counselling would be arranged to understand their cases. The OPD will examine the applicants on case to case basis and will inform them about the procedure.
The OPD was inaugurated at the hands of Mukta Tilak, Pune’s Mayor on Wednesday. Shailesh Puntambekar, Director of GCMH, said, “Dream with the limit is called goals. We have achieved our goal with the uterus transplant surgery. It was not an easy journey for us. We went to Sweden to learn about it. We went through all the procedures to get it sanctioned and also faced some criticism, but I feel science can progress only with criticism. You cannot stop the instinct of motherhood. There are women whose eyes get wet when they see commercial ads on sanitary pads. These are the women who do not have experienced menstruation in their life, as they do not have uterus.”
Pune’s Mayor Mukta Tilak said, “Being a woman, I can tell you how important is the instinct of motherhood for a woman. I just hope that many such women, who could not have baby, will get a chance after they get treated at this hospital.”
The first transplant was conducted on a 21-year-old girl from Solapur on May 18 this year. Among the four siblings, she was the only one whose uterus was absent by birth. The hospital conducted another womb transplant on May 19 on a 24-year-old woman from Vadodara who suffered from Asherman’s Syndrome (scar tissue in the uterus) and who received her mother’s womb. Both women have started with their first menstrual cycle post-surgery recently, which indicates that their womb is functioning normally.