NEW DELHI: A 57-year-old woman, who was declared brain dead after suffering from serious injury in the head, saved lives of at least three people in her death.
The woman (name not disclosed) was brought to Aakash Hospital in Dwarka on March 28. After she was declared brain dead, the hospital said, her family members consented to donate her organs.
“According to the government’s allocation criteria, organs were harvested and transferred at 5am on March 29; one of her kidneys was given to a patient at Aakash Healthcare, Dwarka, itself while the other one was sent to Apollo Hospital for transplantation in a 52-year-old. The woman’s liver was used for transplantation in a 71-year-old man admitted at Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon,” the authorities at Aakash Healthcare said. They added that the cadaver donor’s corneas have been preserved in the eye bank of Shroff Eye Centre.
Dr Vikas Agarwal, director and head of the department of urology, and kidney transplant at Aakash Healthcare, said the whole process of organ retrieval and transplant took around 20 hours. “It’s dismal to see that in India less than 1% of the braindead organs are utilised, while 99% are wasted due to lack of an organised and centralised system. The main cause is lack of consciousness or understanding of how important a donation can be for a person struggling for life,” he said.