Maharashtra: Man donates brain-dead wife’s organs, saves lives of two patients

PUNE: The husband of a 41-year-old brain-dead woman donated her vital organs, including heart and liver, that went on to benefit two patients in Mumbai and Pune on Sunday.

This is the 10th organ donation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the 24th since January. The husband also pledged his organs after his wife's death.
“We were all struck by the husband’s forthright approach. After signing the consent form to donate his wife’s organs, he filled up another form pledging his own organs after death,” said Jehangir hospital’s transplant coordinator Vrinda Pusalkar.
The woman was admitted at the hospital on August 26 after complaining of severe headaches. She was soon diagnosed with intracranial bleeding. Despite their best efforts, doctors could not revive her and by Saturday afternoon, she was declared brain dead.
As per norms of the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC), which oversees allocation of donated organs, the woman's heart was allocated to a 28-year-old Mumbai man, a patient of end-stage heart disease enrolled at the HN Reliance hospital in Mumbai. The woman's liver was given to a 43-year-old Pune man, a patient of liver failure enrolled with Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital.
The donor and recipients were tested for Covid-19. “Then the doctors started the process of transplantation where the standard procedures to avoid Covid infection were followed,” said ZTCC’s transplant coordinator, Aarti Gokhale.