A 19-year-old boy’s family offered a ray of hope to three families in Mumbai on New Year’s Eve when they decided to donate the organs of their dead son at KEM hospital, Parel.
The boy had met with a train accident on December 29 and was brought to KEM hospital with severe head injuries.
“He had severe head injuries and was unconscious. We did our best to save him but he didn’t respond to the treatment and remained critical in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU),” a doctor from KEM’s trauma department said.
On December 31 afternoon, the ICU staff informed the hospital’s zonal transplant co-ordinator that the patient was brain dead. “It was a tough task to approach the parents and break the news. It was a further challenge to take their consent for donating their son’s organs,” said the doctor.
The ICU staff said the family was shattered to hear the news, but social workers convinced them to donate the organs and give life to three more people.
“The family found logic in what the social workers told them. They wanted to see their son alive in three people and gave their consent to donate organs,” said the doctor.
Speaking to dna, the hospital staff said that two end-stage kidney patients and one-end stage liver patient will benefit by the donation. “All three patients will get the organs transplanted after 12am today. It will be a happy new year for three families as their patients will be free of disease in 2014,” said the doctor.
A cadaver donation occurs when the family of a patient declared brain dead agrees to donate his or her organs, particularly kidneys, liver and lungs.
This will be the 21st cadaver donation in Mumbai. Cadaver donations in the city plummeted after touching a record high of 26 in 2012. The trend of has always fluctuated in the city.
After rising to 18 in 2010, it fell to 10 the next year. In 2012, organ donations touched an all-time high of 26 as the issue came centre stage, following Vilasrao Deshmukh’s death due to liver failure. According to the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC), Mumbai, in 2014, they plan to have a strong team in public hospitals to ensure there are more cadaver donations.
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