• Home

Increase in organ donation is saving lives in India

NOTTO was set up with the mandate to coordinate organ transplants across the country

Recently, two cadaverous organs-a heart and lung-were transported from around 1400km away in Chandigarh to Mumbai to save the lives of two patients. The patients were at the final stage of their organ-failure.
This was Mumbai's fourth lung transplant and 51st heart transplant. It came about because of a family's generosity. A traffic accident in Chandigarh resulted in the death of a 40-year-old. At the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research ( PGIMER) in Chandigarh the patient was declared brain-dead on arrival. As is common in such situations, despite the fact that the bereaved family was in no condition to take a decision as sensitive as organ donation, the doctors presented the issue to the relatives. Two patients at the end of their lives could be saved if the family consented to donate organs of the departed.
Mumbai has earlier received organs from Indore, Pune and Surat, but officials of National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) said that Chandigarh is likely to the farthest that donated organs have come to Mumbai. As the distance increases so does the time consumed in transport, and proportionate to these two factors the usability of the organs could vary, and sometimes it could be nil.
NOTTO was set up with the mandate to coordinate organ transplants across the country. "On Saturday, we spent hours to ensure that a critically ill patient who has been in hospital for over a month due to lung failure, could get one," said Dr Viman Bhandari of NOTTO. The lung recipient was suffering from interstitial lung disease and had been waitlisted two weeks back.

Another patient, a driver, was suffering from heart failure for the last couple of years and was put on the supra-urgent list for the organ since the past 37 days.  

Because the Chandigarh family's ready consent NOTTO got into action. This means arranging for the transport of the organs in clinical conditions through often heavily trafficked roads.To clear a way NOTTO has to coordinate with the local police so that they can create a "green channel". The organs then have to be airlifted immediately to their destination, and transport from the airport to the hospital has to go fast and without a glitch.

"NOTTO has coordinated over 120 such transplants in the last 18 months. The city-level Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre too plays a crucial role in  organ-sharing between hospitals in Mumbai.

Organ donations, once considered a taboo by most Indians, are now becoming acceptable. Only recently, a 55-year-old banker from Mulund, Mumbai, who suffered brain hemorrhage and collapsed at work, gave a new lease of life to four end-stage organ failure patients after her family consented to donate her heart, liver, kidneys and cornea. The total donations for the city this year now stands at 21.
Sneha Yolekar had become unconscious and fell down after complaining of a sudden fit of headache in her office. She was rushed to a hospital, where the bleeding in her brain was detected. Her condition deteriorated in the next few days. When there was no hope at all of a recovery, the doctors informed the family of the possibility of organ donation. The family agreed.

The heart-recipient was a 37-year-old man from Satara. in Maharashtra. Sneha Yolekar's liver was successfully transplanted into a 60-year-old woman from Kolkata. The kidney was transplanted into a 27-year-old Thane woman, who was suffering from chronic kidney disease. The other kidney was shared with Asian Heart Institute. Her corneas were stored with an eye bank.
In India, close to 5 lakh patients die every year because of organ-scarcity. But that number is coming down with more and more people coming around to the idea that their dear departed lives on in other people, thanks to the donated organs.

• India