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Organ recipients bat for awareness at PGI summit
Exemplifying the success of the organ transplants, a renal recipient and athlete Heera Singh won a javelin throw gold at the World Transplant Games held in Australia earlier this year
Organ recipients and donor families on Friday shared inspiring personal stories at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research’s (PGIMER) Golden Anniversary Summit on Kidney and Pancreas.
Exemplifying the success of the transplants, a renal recipient and athlete Heera Singh who won a javelin throw gold at the World Transplant Games held in Australia earlier this year, spoke of his journey.
Singh, who was diagnosed with kidney failure merely three months after his marriage in 2012, received a kidney from his sister. Following the transplant, which took place a year later, he now leads a normal life and actively engages in sports activities.
Deepak Rai, a heart recipient hailing from Bathinda, said he was a former kabaddi player and had also competed in boxing at the national level. Diagnosed with heart failure during the Covid-19 pandemic at PGIMER, he successfully underwent a transplant on March 20, 2022, and is now leading a normal, healthy life.
Recipients Nidhish Nadan and Shalini, who underwent simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplant, along with Ashutosh Sharma, a kidney recipient, shared their transformative experiences. They reassured the public that life after transplantation is vibrant and urged people not to hesitate in becoming organ donors.
Chief guest member of Parliament from Chandigarh, Kirron Kher, while addressing the attendees, said, “The Government of India has launched Ayushman Bharat scheme which covers dialysis for the beneficiaries and has now even included kidney transplants. While it has provided some respite for these patients, much more needs to be done, more so by the public as donation of organs after death can only be respite to the suffering of people.”
“Currently, less than 5% of medical colleges only have the facility of organ donation or transplants. It’s a huge challenge, we need to create more trained professionals in the field of organ transplant surgery along with world class facilities to enable organ donation and transplant,” Kher said.
PGIMER director Vivek Lal, recounting the hospital’s journey said, “We go back 50 years and KS Chugh and RVS Yadav put their heads and hearts together and raised a trajectory that has brought us to this pass that we are the spearhead of transplant surgeries in India.”
Head of the renal transplant surgery Ashish Sharma, meanwhile, said, “PGIMER’s tryst with transplantation dates back to 1973 and since then, there has not been any looking back with the numbers consistently rising every year.”
“PGIMER conducted its first kidney transplant on June 21, 1973 and till date, and has accomplished 4,882 renal transplants including both live and deceased, thereby, saving precious lives,” he added.
Families of donors Amanjot Kaur, 20, Manpreet Singh, 30, Amandeep Singh, 22 and Balinder Singh, 28, were honoured at the event.
