Keywords :
Hospital, costing, homograft valve

ABSTRACT
Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology started the Homograft valve Bank project in 2006 with the aim to provide valve replacement surgery using homograft valves to patient with valvular heart disease. Homograft is harvested from the dead bodies undergoing postmortem examination in the mortuary of Department of Forensic Medicine, Government Medical College (SCTIMST) Thiruvananthapuram. The study was conducted with an aim to get an insight into cost incurred in processing homograft valve available in the market. The cost was arrived at by calculating the cost of manpower, equipment, consumables and the overheads charges. The data was collected by personal observation and interview with the staff engaged in the harvesting and processing of homograft valves. As per the study, cost of homograft valve processed at SCTIMST was estimated to be Rs. 15,000.00 per valve. While comparing with the cost of other prosthetic and bio-prosthetic valves available in the market, the cost of homograft at SCTIMST valve was found to be cheaper. However the Institute provides it free of cost to the patient.