New Delhi, Senior Correspondent
The Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, Dr. VandanaTalwar, informed that on 3rd March 2024, a 26-year-old deceased donor Vijay, and his family generously gave a new lease of life to four patients. The family hails from Ballabgarh district, Haryana. He was unwell for a week and was on private treatment for a while. He had an acute febrile illness and was hospitalized in Safdarjung Hospital on 25th Feb 24 in critical condition. On the evening of 2nd March 2024, after a series of tests, a panel of specialists certified him brain dead. The family was explained and counseled for a donation of organs, to which they agreed despite tremendous grief after losing their son.
The parents of the deceased donor Vijay agreed to this act of generosity and decided to donate four vital organs to the hospital for waitlisted needy patients. The organ retrieval was successfully carried out in Safdarjung Hospital by the Organ Donation and Transplant Coordination Committee. The retrieved organs were allotted across the city in coordination with NOTTO. The heart of the deceased donor was transplanted in a patient at AIIMS, New Delhi, the liver and one kidney were transplanted in R & R Army Hospital, and one kidney was transplanted in Safdarjung Hospital by the respective teams of Nephrology and Urology. The recipient of the kidney at Safdarjung Hospital is stable and recovering well. This selfless act on the part of the kin of the donor will go a long way to spread awareness in the masses regarding Organ Donation.
The current cadaveric organ donation and the previous cadaveric organ donation in Safdarjung Hospital in the month of Jan2024are a result of the revival of an ongoing program for increasing awareness in the faculty and residents towards Brain stem death declaration and Deceased Organ Donation. The Medical Superintendent also informed that in Safdarjung Hospital, the Organ Donation and Transplant Coordination Committee, under the charge of Dr. VandanaChakravarty, Additional MS, and the officer in charge Dr. BinitaJaiswal has been actively holding sensitization and training sessions to increase awareness towards potential brain stem death declaration and organ donation. Organ donation involves healthy organs and tissues from one person being transplanted into another organ that can only be donated either after the natural death of a person or if the person is declared brain dead, which was legalized in India under the ‘Transplantation of Human Organ (THO) Act’ in 1994. Since then it has been made possible to undertake multi-organ transplant activity from brain-dead donors.
Anyone can volunteer to register as a donor with a hospital/NGO/Government /NOTTO. It is advisable to inform one’s family members regarding one’s decision to pledge one’s organs to help those in need.