The family of a 50-year-old businessman from Mulund on Tuesday donated his kidneys, liver and skin, thus making it Mumbai’s first cadaver organ donation of the year.
The donor was declared brain dead at Fortis Hospital in Mulund after he suffered a posterior circulation stroke. His family was counselled by doctors and medical social workers following which the donor’s wife and brother gave their consent to donate his organs.
One kidney and the liver were allocated to Fortis Hospital while the other kidney was transported to another city hospital. The skin was sent to the skin bank in Airoli.
The liver was harvested by Dr. Swapnil Sharma, consultant, liver transplant and HPB surgery, and was transplanted into an in-house recipient, a 60-year-old male patient from Borivali, by Dr. Gaurav Gupta, consultant and chief surgeon. The 60-year-old receiver, a retired professional, had been waitlisted for a liver since December 2020 after being diagnosed with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis cirrhosis.
The kidney was transplanted into another in-house 67-year-old male recipient from Bhandup, who had been waitlisted since August 2014 after being diagnosed with end-stage renal disease. The kidney was harvested by consultant urologists Dr. Ramesh Mahajan while the transplant was carried out by Dr. Saurabh Patil.
“There is a wide gap between the numbers of patients with organ failure waiting for a transplant and organs donated. Most patients unfortunately die while waiting for an organ, and every cadaver organ donation is a mammoth step towards bridging this gap,” Dr. Sharma said.
Efforts by the Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre (ZTCC), surgical and non-surgical teams of Fortis Hospital, medical social workers, and police officials helped in the successful cadaver organ donation.
Dr. Bharat Shah, general secretary of ZTCC, Mumbai zone, said with increasing awareness families of almost 50% cases get convinced for donating organs of their loved ones who are now no more. “Unfortunately, due to the pandemic the transplant was affected. In 2019, Maharashtra had the highest number of transplants in the country. The scare of spreading the virus through transplantation hit most of the hospitals and hence they had stopped counselling the families,” he said.
This year, Mr. Shah said, they are hoping that the situation will improve and hospitals will start counselling so that they can have a greater number of transplants. “While in 2019, we had more than 70 cadaver donors, in 2020, it came down to around 35 in Mumbai zone,” he added.
