Seven hair transplants completed in 19 months.

The statistics is scary especially when Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) has been offering the services free since January 2014.

The only reason that doctors at the PMCH's plastic surgery department cited was lack of manpower. "We lack manpower because of which we have not been able to take many cases. All the three assistant professors' posts are lying vacant at the department. Besides, one of the three posts of the associate professor and two posts of senior residents are also lying vacant. We do hair transplants surgery using follicular unit transplant procedure, which takes at least eight hours. So we need to have manpower to conduct the surgery regularly at the hospital," said department head V.P. Choudhary.

A team of five, including doctors and paramedics, is necessary to conduct hair transplant on one person. The PMCH was the first government hospital in the state to start such a facility.

However, AIIMS-Patna would begin hair transplant shortly, as follicular unit extraction kit - a key equipment used for complete bald persons - has reached the super-speciality hospital.

At AIIMS-Patna, sources said, expert hands are also available to do the surgery. Abhijeet Jha, a senior resident with its skin department, had done many hair transplant surgeries in the previous hospital where he was working.

Rajesh Sinha, head, skin department, AIIMS-Patna, said: "We have bought the follicular unit extraction machine. We are not being able to start the facility because of space crisis. Once we sort out this problem, we would soon start the procedure."

The PMCH, Choudhary added, has not got the kit even now. "The kit costs around Rs 25 lakh. At PMCH, we cannot conduct transplant on complete bald people, as we don't have the crucial kit. We also do the surgery at free of cost while at private hospitals, one has to shell out something between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh for the same procedure."

In the follicular unit extraction technique, hair is taken from the area of scalp having dense hair and it is transplanted into the bald area. Hair strands are transplanted at a fixed distance so that they grow properly. Transplanted hair takes three to six months to grow. The whole procedure takes five to six hours. Patients can go home the same day or the next.

A senior doctor of the PMCH plastic surgery department, preferring anonymity, said: "Last year, hair transplant surgeon Manoj Khanna was brought in for training doctors. "