Jayshree Champanerkar doesn’t know his name, but that doesn’t stop her from saying a silent prayer for the 18-year-old student from Kolkata each day. She feels that’s the least she owes the man who has given her husband, Sudhir — and their family — a fresh lease of life.
The Kolkata youth, the last cadaver donor of 2012, breathed hope into the lives of three patients who were in dire need of an organ transplant. The 18-year-old had arrived in Mumbai to attend a wedding, but he died in a train mishap while on his way to meet friends at CST on December 17 last year. “He was rushed to St George Hospital and then to JJ Hospital before the family shifted him to Jaslok Hospital,” says a doctor from Jaslok Hospital. He was pronounced brain dead the next day, after which his parents took the call to donate his organs. Sudhir, a 54-year-old businessman from Jogeshwari who had been suffering from hepatitis C for two years, was one of three “lucky” donees.
Dr Sanjay Nagral, liver transplant surgeon at Jaslok Hospital, says, “He is extremely lucky to have got a new liver within five months of having registered with the liver transplantation programme.”
He was discharged on Tuesday. For Jayshree, seeing her husband back at home is the best New Year gift. The 18-year-old’s organ donations have even inspired her to take a vow to become a cadaver donor and give back to society.
