Mumbai: City’s fourth hand transplant begins on 32-year-old Pune father of two

MUMBAI: The city’s fourth hand transplant began late on Saturday when the family of a 14-year-old with chronic kidney disease in Surat donated his organs after he was declared brain dead.
His hands were brought to Mumbai in a chartered flight for the recipient, a 32-year-old father of two from Pune. The transplant is being carried out in Global Hospital in Parel, where the city’s first hand transplant was carried out in August 2020. While the second hand transplant in the city was carried out in BMC-run KEM Hospital, Parel, in August, the third was performed two weeks back in Global.
Less than 20 hand transplants have been performed in India, with Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in Kochi having started the procedure. A senior doctor said that Mumbai,, after having done four hands transplants within a year, has emerged as a “destination’’ for the procedure. The last three transplants have been done in the last two months.
Saturday’s transplant recipient is a former accountant and a quadruple amputee, having lost his hands and legs after being electrocuted on Diwali in 2019. He was watering plants in the evening in the garden when he stood on a live wire.
“He needs above-elbow bilateral transplant. The operation began around 5.30pm on Saturday and could take 12 to 16 hours to complete,’’ the doctor said. It is learnt that the donor, who suffered from kidney disease and used to undergo dialysis for a year, suffered an intracranial bleed. His family donated his hands, heart and liver.
Meanwhile, the third hand transplant recipient, Jagdev Singh, is recovering well, said doctors from Global Hospital. “He has been undergoing physiotherapy and could be discharged within a week,’’ said a doctor associated with the transplant.
Bilateral transplants cost Rs 21-26 lakh, and Singh and the latest recipient needed financial help for the procedure.
Incidentally, Mumbai has completed 30 cadaveric transplants in 2021 so far as compared to 30 in 2020 and 79 in 2019. “Of the four hand transplants carried out in Mumbai, only one set of hands were donated in the city while the rest came from other cities,’’ said Dr S Mathur, who heads the Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre.