A 28-year-old man from Bhiwani, who lost his life in a road accident, gifted life and vision to six families as his family donated vital organs of the brain-dead man to those in need.
The organ donation process, which began on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, not only made medical history but also placed Haryana on the national organ donation map.
For the first time in the history of Rohtak PGIMS, teams from two military hospitals arrived at the hospital to take the donated organs. One team arrived by helicopter, the other by road.
A green corridor was created to transport the donated organs with the help of district police personnel. The young man’s liver was sent to RR Hospital in and heart to another hospital, both in Delhi.
One kidney was sent to the Army Hospital at Chandimandir and the other has been transplanted to a patient at PGIMS. Two corneas have also been transplanted to patients of PGIMS.
Saluting the spirit of the donor family, Dr H K Aggarwal, Vice-Chancellor, Pt Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, said the good deed had given a noble message to the entire state, which will prove effective in changing the mindset of the people towards organ donation.
When one ‘yes’ changed six lives
On the evening of May 13, Vishal of Bhiwani suffered a serious head injury in a road accident on the Bhiwani-Dadri road. He was first taken to a private hospital at Rohtak and then to the PGIMS Trauma Centre.
A team of doctors led by Dr Tarun Yadav took care of the patient. As he was found to be brain-dead, members of the organ-transplant unit counselled the family members of the patient for organ donation.
As the wife and father of the patient agreed to donate his organs, the process of organ allocation was initiated.
At 5.30 am on Saturday, a heart-retrieval team from the Army Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi arrived at the Trauma Centre operation theatre by road. Simultaneously, a team of Col (Dr) Anurag’s team from Command Hospital, Chandimandir, also arrived by helicopter.
The organs were retrieved, with the procedure taking about three hours. The donated organs were immediately rushed to Delhi and Chandigarh.
The PGIMS Director, Dr S K Singhal, said the state has witnessed a silent revolution in organ donation in recent times.
“The PGIMS is on its way to becoming a major organ-donation centre under guidance of UHS Vice-Chancellor and leadership of Dr Sukhbir Singh, nodal officer of State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), Haryana," he maintained.
The PGIMS Medical Superintendent, Dr Kundan Mittal, said coordinating multiple organ retrieval and transplantation on such a large scale was challenging.
“Our anesthesia, surgery, microbiology, pathology, forensic medicine, nursing, blood bank and radiology teams worked tirelessly for 36 hours. This is a triumph of teamwork," he stated.
Nephrologist and nodal officer for Organ Donation and Transplantation, Dr Ankur Goyal, explained that emergency cross-match samples of the donor and recipients were sent to Dr Lal Path Labs, which provided the cross-match report in less than six hours, making the kidney transplant successful.
“Without these tests, the transplant would not have been possible. PGIMS, Rohtak, bears the cost of these tests. This is an example of public-private partnership," he maintained.
As the body of the donor-patient was taken for funeral, it was showered with flowers and the PGIMS campus reverberated with chanting of ‘Angdaan Mahadaan’.
“My son has passed away, but he is still alive in six persons. He has served humanity and the nation," said Vishal’s father.
Former Haryana minister and BJP leader Manish Grover also reached the hospital and consoled the family of the deceased.
He commended the family members for the noble deed and maintained that he would make efforts to promote organ donation in coordination with the state government.
