East India’s 1st bone bank set to debut in Kolkata today
Times of India | 29 November 2025
Kolkata: For the first time in eastern India, a hospital is set to flag off its own ‘bone bank' on Saturday.
This facility at a private hospital in south Kolkata will allow harvesting of bones from cadavers and their transplantation like organs. It is ready to counsel brain-dead patients' families to donate bones along with organs. The donated bones can be used on patients who need bone replacements. The hospital also plans to have a tissue banking facility soon.
According to the hospital's orthopaedic department, the bank will provide bones to other private and govt hospitals if they need them for replacement surgeries, following necessary procedures and protocol, a spokesperson said. CMRI Hospital, that has set up the bank, already has 35 bones and bone fragments in its bank.
"Sometimes, we can get bones from patients' own body parts, but it's not always enough. Normally, we end up using bones from someone who has donated them for the purpose, especially patients who have undergone knee surgery, hip surgery, big spine fusion, or bone tumour excisions. Once the bone bank starts functioning, we will move into tissue banking where the soft parts can also be stored for reconstruction and repair of tendons, muscles, and ligaments," said Rakesh Rajput, head of the department of orthopaedics at the hospital.
He added that total hip and knee replacements provide bones and cartilages that can be used for transplants. "We get patients who need parts or fragments of bone in the aftermath of surgeries, especially brain or spine surgeries. So far, the practice was to chip off portions from the patients' healthy bones and use them. But that is often not adequate. A bank will help us with access to bones that can be shaped to suit the patients' needs," added Rajput. The CMRI also has portions of the spine ready to be used for transplants. The hospital has a team of orthopaedics trained at Ramaiah Memorial Hospital in Bengaluru, which has fine-tuned their bone harvesting and transplantation skills. The bank will help to revolutionise orthopaedic treatment in Kolkata, according to Dipanjan Bhadra, an orthopaedic at Ruby General Hospital. "It will help trauma patients who suffer multiple fractures and end up with gaps in their bones which can't always be plugged with autograft or their own bones. Spinal fusion surgeries, too, require bone fragments which can be easily sourced from a bank and tailored according to the patients' needs. Also, patients who have undergone knee or hip replacements often suffer infections and have to take the implants off, which leaves gaps," said Bhadra. Several recipients who have undergone bone replacements through donors will be present at the inauguration of the bank.