Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

A 39-day-old girl child gave a new lease of life to a 15-year-old boy from Patiala. The family of the child donated her kidneys after she suffered renal failure, here today.

The child was born on October 28 and had brain anomalies incompatible with life. The girl’s parents brought her to the PGI on November 25.

When doctors told her parents - Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and his wife Supreet Kaur from Amritsar - that their daughter wouldn’t pull through, they decided to donate her kidneys and save someone’s life.

The victim’s father, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, who works as an agriculture development officer and is also the president of the Plant Doctors Services Association, Punjab, said: “It’s something no family should have to go through. We agreed to organ donation because somewhere in our hearts, we felt that our daughter’s such short mortal journey had a ‘purpose’. She came to this world only to give life to someone else in pain. Despite the heartache that we are going through, we knew it was the right thing to do.”

Prof Ashish Sharma, Head, Department of Renal Transplant Surgery, PGI, said: “Retrieving organs from children for transplant is rare. It is even more uncommon from such young children with congenital anomalies. The case had its own types of challenges. The best-matched recipient was grown-up. So, both kidneys were transplanted onto one recipient considering the age factor.”