Liver, kidneys from 18-year-old, 4th teen deceased donor in West Bengal, save 3 lives

KOLKATA: The liver and kidneys of an 18-year-old deceased donor, Naina Saraf, were transplanted into three patients in two hospitals on Thursday. Sources said all three recipients are recuperating. The teen was declared brain dead on Thursday at Apollo Multispeciality Hospital.
This is the fourth time organs of a deceased teenager have been donated in Bengal, the youngest being 13.
According to sources, the Salt Lake resident was under medical care at Apollo since May 19. Her condition kept deteriorating and she suffered irreversible brain stem death. Her family consented to the donations and she was declared brain dead. The hospital contacted ROTTO accordingly. On assessment, doctors found the liver and kidneys fit for transplant. Apollo was allowed to retain the liver and a kidney while ROTTO allotted a kidney to Command Hospital. The donor’s cornea went to Disha Eye.
The first teenage deceased donation was on August 17, 2018, when Siliguri resident Mallika Majumdar was declared brain dead at IPGMER. The same year, the family donated the organs of a 13-year-old girl. In August 2019, the kidneys and liver of a 19-year-old who died in a road acci-dent were transplanted into three end-stage organ fail-ure patients.
Also on Thursday, despite the proactive role by the husband of a deceased woman, only her tissues — cornea and skin — could be retrieved for donation. The cornea went to Shankar Nethralaya and the skin has been banked at IPGMER. Homemaker Mukti Bhowmik’s husband Swapan said if the nursing home where the 51-year-old died had been proactive too, her organs could have been donated.
According to Swapan, Bhowmik had collapsed at their Nimta home last Sunday and was taken to a local nursing home. Later, she was shifted to Peerless Hospital.
“Doctors suspected irreversible brain damage and suggested I shift her to a smaller nursing home with ICU facilities where the charges would be lower. I bought her back to the nursing home,” Swapan said.
He got in touch with ROTTO, expressing his desire to donate his wife’s organs. ROTTO asked him to tell the hospital to conduct a few tests before it could send its team. “I got the cash ready for those tests, but the nursing home kept dragging its feet,” Swapan alleged.
On Thursday morning, he got a call from the nursing home saying his wife had died. “I have been talking about organ donation to others to create awareness. But when it came to walking the talk, the circumstances failed me. I could only donate her cornea and skin,” he said.