Wife of brain-dead Pune man donates organs, saves lives of four patients

A team left from Pune at 2.18am and reached Mumbai at 4.06am, covering 154 km in one hour and 49 minutes, thanks to a green corridor

Doctors from Mumbai on Thursday performed the year’s second heart transplant on a 42-year-old Chembur resident diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy (restricted ability of the heart to pump blood).

The heart was donated by the wife of a 30-year-old brain dead patient from Pune. She also donated his liver and kidneys, saving lives of three other patients.

Doctors from Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune, said the donor — a father of three school-going children — was pronounced brain-dead after collapsing at his residence owing to hypertensive intracranial bleed (bleeding inside the brain owing to a ruptured blood vessel).

“The incident took place three months after the donor was diagnosed with hypertension and didn’t respond to any treatment. When we approached the family to consider the option of organ donation, his wife consented to donate the heart, liver and kidneys, saving and enriching lives of four patients suffering from end-stage organ failure,” said doctors from Ruby Hall Clinic.

A cardiac transplant team at Fortis Hospital in Mulund left from Pune at 2.18am and reached Mumbai at 4.06am, covering 154 km in one hour and 49 minutes, thanks to a green corridor.

Dr Anvay Mule, head of the cardiac transplant team, said that the patient was waitlisted to receive an organ in September 2017.

“Organ Donation momentum certainly seems to be building up in 2018, at this rate, we hope to inch closer to bridging the donor-recipient gap. We salute to the families of donors who make it possible,” said Dr Mule.