With six end-stage organ failure patients undergoing cadaver organ transplants in a span of just four days, the cadaver donations in the city this year has almost doubled.
Despite the steady rise in cadaver organ donations, experts said that the numbers are too less, given the swelling waiting list of patients battling organ failure.
According to the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC), responsible for allocating donated organs, 20 families had consented to donate organs of relatives with brain death in 2013. This year, 39 cadaver donations have been reported.
On Saturday, the family of a 40-year-old man, who met with an accident while riding his bike, donated his organs. The donor was admitted to Fortis Hospital, Mulund, on Tuesday, after he sustained multiple injuries. The donated liver was transplanted to a woman, 68, and the kidney was transplanted to man, 44. The other kidney was transplanted to a 55-year-old man admitted at Lilavati Hospital, Bandra.
On the eve of Christmas, organs of a 67-year-old woman from Ghatkopar were retrieved by a team of surgeons at Fortis Hospital, Mulund. The donor had a sudden stroke, which resulted in bleeding in the brain.
After she developed irreversible brain damage, the hospital’s social workers told the family that they could donate her organs, if they wished, to which the family agreed. The cadaver liver was transplanted to a woman, 62, who was battling liver failure, after she developed liver cancer. Both the kidneys were also transplanted.
{{/usCountry}}After she developed irreversible brain damage, the hospital’s social workers told the family that they could donate her organs, if they wished, to which the family agreed. The cadaver liver was transplanted to a woman, 62, who was battling liver failure, after she developed liver cancer. Both the kidneys were also transplanted.
{{/usCountry}}“A donor detection programme should be started at every hospital so that cadaver donors can be identified easily. Any major public hospital in Mumbai will have at least four to five potential cadaver donors, but they are rarely identified or motivated,” said Dr Sujata Patwardhan, general secretary, ZTCC.
“In the absence of cadaver donors, a healthy individual has to undergo the risk associated with surgery to donate his or her organs to save the life of a relative,” said Dr Gustad Daver, president, ZTCC.
Dr Daver said that more hospitals need to build transplant facilities, which will identify and motivate cadaver donors.
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