Dead naval officer’s organs saves 3 lives

Three lives were saved and two people got back their eyesight, when parents of a 29-year-old naval officer, who died of brain tumour at the Army Hospital, Dhaula Kuan, donated his organs.

Three lives were saved and two people got back their eyesight, when parents of a 29-year-old naval officer, who died of brain tumour at the Army Hospital, Dhaula Kuan, donated his organs.

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The officer, Lt. Cdr Pramod Sharma, was operated for the tumour in the hospital but died two days later on February 9.

The liver was successfully transplanted into a man suffering from liver failure, and one kidney each was given to a man and a woman, both of whom were suffering from kidney failure, a day after his death on February 10.

The two corneas have been preserved by the hospital for later transplantation.

This was the 38th multiple organ donation in the Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority (AORTA) at the hospital, since its inception in the beginning of 2007. It is so far the highest by any single organ banking unit in the country.

Out of the 112 brain dead cases at the hospital till date, 41 families agreed to donate the organs. The liver transplant team has also 35 deceased-donor liver transplantation.

AORTA also shares organs with other hospitals like All India Institute of Medical Sciences, whose Organ Retrieval and Banking Organisation has not met with much success.

The trauma centre of AIIMS got about 70 brain dead cases in 2010, but only two families agreed to donate the organs.

On an average, the department of nephrology at AIIMS conducts less than 10 cadaver kidney transplants in a year, when the actual need is 10 times more. The low awareness about brain death and organ donation is the reason why the organ donation rate is so low in the country.