A three-year-old boy has become the youngest cadaver donor in Mumbai this year, when his parents agreed to donate his heart, liver and kidneys. According to the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC), before the pandemic, the city’s youngest cadaver donor was a two-year-old baby in February 2019.
ZTCC General Secretary Dr Bharat Shah informed that in the present instance, the toddler had suffered a horrific accident on June 5, as he was playing with his elder brother outside their home in Dombivli. A stationary bike fell on him, rendering him unconscious. His brother rushed inside to alert their mother, who rushed outside to find her younger son having passed out after a head injury.
She rushed him to the local doctor, who sent them to the nearest hospital. There, he received primary care before being sent to Wadia Hospital, for further treatment.
Patient Was Declared Brain Dead
“He underwent surgery to relieve the compression on his brain (due to internal bleeding). He was later shifted to Wadia Hospital but, his condition remained critical and he was subsequently declared brain dead on June 9. The paediatric intensive care team worked round the clock to ensure his body stability during this critical period,” Dr Shah said.
Meanwhile, the coordinator and a ZTCC representative answered the parents’ questions, addressing any misconceptions and concerns, providing them with the knowledge required to make an informed decision.
“After all the tests and necessary procedures, irreversible brainstem death was confirmed by the hospital’s brain stem death (BSD) committee on June 10. The ZTCC was informed of this and the boy’s organs were allocated. Once the organs were allocated, we coordinated with the recipient teams and proceeded with the medico-legal clearances for the procedure. Organ retrieval began on June 11 – the heart, liver and both kidneys were retrieved by respective surgical teams – and the entire procedure lasted five hours, after which the body of the deceased was handed over to the family,” said a senior doctor.
Wadia Hospitals CEO Expresses Gratitude
Dr Minnie Bodhanwala, CEO, Wadia Group of Hospitals, said, “Words alone cannot adequately express the profound gratitude that resonates from the depths of our souls to the deceased boy’s family. They have turned their unimaginable grief into an extraordinary act of compassion and generosity that will forever inspire us.”
She further emphasised the fact that in a country which loses 15 lives every day for the want of an organ, cadaveric donation is the need of the hour. Unfortunately, in the last two years, Maharashtra has been lagging in this regard, as donations have gone down compared to other states, despite increasing awareness drives. This is just the 20th cadaveric organ donation in the state this year.
According to Dr Bodhanwala, “To meet this need, every public hospital in the state of Maharashtra dealing with trauma patients should be sensitised of the need for a BSD committee for the timely identification of brain-dead patients as potential organ donors and initiate the counselling process.”
After a dip in cadaver organ donations in the Covid-19 pandemic, there were 47 cadaver organ donations in 2022, up from 31 in 2021. In 2019, there were 76 organ donors in Mumbai while in 2020, this number dropped to 30.
