Deceased five-year-old’s organs donated at Wadia Hospital

Five-year-old girl donated her heart, kidneys and cornea after she was declared brain-dead at B J Wadia Hospital, Parel, on Monday. The girl, a special child, was admitted last week to a Chembur hospital and shifted to Wadia Hospital on November 22

Mumbai: The parents of a five-year-old girl donated her heart, kidneys and cornea after she was declared brain-dead at B J Wadia Hospital, Parel, on Monday. The girl, a special child, was admitted last week to a Chembur hospital and shifted to Wadia Hospital on November 22.

Deceased five-year-old’s organs donated at Wadia Hospital

“She was brought in on an artificial ventilator and remained critical,” said a doctor from Wadia Hospital. “We declared her brain-dead on November 26, after which our transplant coordinator and team counselled the parents about organ donation. The parents, after initial hesitance, agreed to donate her organs and give a new lease of life to four patients.”

A relative of the donor said the child’s mother initially refused, as she was their only child. “The girl’s name was Drishti (sight),” she said. “We told her that Drishti’s eyes would gift eyesight to two new people and her heart would beat in another person’s body, and she would live on in them. She then instantly agreed.”

While Drishti’s heart was sent to a hospital in Delhi via the green corridor route on Monday morning, one kidney was transplanted in an end-stage kidney patient in KEM Hospital, Parel, and the other in a patient at Jupiter Hospital, Thane. This is the third paediatric cadaver donation at Wadia Hospital since 2022 and the second one this year.

In Mumbai, this will be the third paediatric cadaver donation this year. In July, the parents of a five-year-old donated her liver to Lilavati Hospital, Bandra, after she was declared brain-dead. In February 2019, Mumbai saw the paediatric cadaver donation of a two-year-old child, the youngest donor so far.

Wadia Hospital’s cadaver organ donation is the city’s 42nd donation this year as against the 47 donations in 2022. In 2019, the city had 76 organ donors but the subsequent Covid-19 pandemic led to a dip, with only 30 cadaver organ donations in 2020 and 31 in 2021.

To further increase cadaver donations in the city, Dr Bharat Shah, general secretary, Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee, said that regular meetings were being held with hospitals undertaking organ transplant programmes. “In the meeting, we try to understand the hurdles these hospitals are facing, especially the hospitals without cadaver organ donations,” he said. “We are also conducting meetings of intensivists, who are first-line health care professionals who can detect brain-dead patients in the ICU. The efforts have led to a rise in cadaver organ donations in the city.”