Organ donation: In death, two give new lease of life to 4 patients

Mohali, April 19

Doctors at a private hospital in Sector 62 transplanted the kidneys of two brain dead donors who had passed away due to brain haemorrhage. The recipients were two patients with kidney failure, a 66-year-old man from Chandigarh and a 48-year-old woman from Karnal, who received one kidney each from the donors.

The donors were a 65-year-old man from Chandigarh and a 59-year-old woman from Leh-Ladakh, whose families decided to give ‘the gift of life’ to 10 terminally ill patients who needed four kidney, two liver and four corneal transplants. The entire process of multi-organ retrieval surgery took around 14 hours, and a green corridor was created between Mohali to Ludhiana, Mohali to Jaipur, and Mohali to Delhi to facilitate the transport of the organs.

Two more kidneys were transplanted at a hospital in Ludhiana, which was allocated by the Organ Allocation Policy of SOTTO (State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation), under the aegis of ROTTO (regional) and NOTTO (national), which manages organ donation processes in the state. Two livers were transplanted at a Super Specialty Hospital in New Delhi and a Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Jaipur. Four corneas were sent to the PGIMER, Chandigarh, where they were successfully transplanted into four different patients. This was facilitated by Punjab SOTTO Nodal Officer Dr Gagneen Kaur.

Lauding the efforts of the families, the medical director at Fortis, Mohali Dr Vikramjit Singh, said, “This is an inspiring, selfless act on the part of the families to have given their consent for organ donation.”