The Punya of Organ/Body Donation – Some Heartening Stories
One of my aged relatives died a few months back here in Bhubaneswar. On hearing the news we went to his home for having a last glimpse of him and offering our prayers for him. We were amazed to learn that after the death in the hospital the relatives had returned home empty-handed, because the gentleman had pledged his body to a local medical college for use in its lab. It had to be preserved immediately, so the medical college had arranged to take it directly from the hospital after the death. We were also pleasantly surprised that in the body-donation pledge both husband and wife had signed. Looking at the bereaved wife we bowed our heads as a mark of unbounded respect and admiration.
We also came to learn that although organ donation has gained some degree of acceptance, donation of a body for education and research purposes is relatively rare.
Here are a few stories of many large-hearted persons and their families who earned the punya of donating their physical body or its parts to earn unbounded spiritual bliss. There must be many such stories all over India. The selfless acts of these benevolent souls are an inspiration to others.
I am sure the attached heart-touching video of a father trying to hear his daughter’s heartbeats in a recipient will undoubtedly bring joy and tears to the readers.
1.LEAVING NO STONE UNTURNED:
Mr. K.R. Srinivasan, who is a model for others, went to great lengths to ensure that his body gets donated to the medical institution of his choice. It seems the idea of the body donation came to his mind when he was a student and visited the Madras Medical College where he observed an ongoing class on limb dissection. About 30 odd students had to study with the help of one single limb. That incident planted the seed of this desire to donate his body for medical research.
He used to spend six summer months in Kanpur with his son, and the remaining six months away from the biting cold of the city, in the warmer weather of Chennai. This was because winters didn’t suit his wife who was an asthma patient.
He first got the permission to donate his body in J J Hospital, Mumbai. But he was in Chennai, and did not want his relatives to face any problems when sending his body to a different city. So he filed a petition in Chennai High Court, and after a legal battle that went on for about 10 years, he got the permission to donate his body to Ramachandra Medical College.
But there was still a lingering doubt.
“I am spending six months in Kanpur, and six in Chennai. What is the guarantee that I will kick the bucket in Chennai only? If I pass away in Kanpur, you will have to take a lot of trouble of sending my body to Chennai,” he told his son Mr. K. S. Ranganathan one day. His son suggested that he should explore the possibility of donating his body at Kanpur Medical College as well. The college was at a walking distance from the son’s residence at Vishnupuri. Without wasting any time, he set out to meet the Dean of the college and explained his situation. The Dean said that it was not in his jurisdiction to accept the donation, and Mr. Srinivasan should meet the Secretary of Health Services at the state capital in Lucknow at a distance of about 75 kms. However, the scorching summer heat in Kanpur did not deter him. Hiring a taxi, he set out to meet the Secretary of the State Government at Lucknow. He expressed his long cherished desire of donating his body, and got the necessary permission in writing addressed to the Dean of Kanpur Medical College.
Satisfied with his efforts, Mr. Srinivasan handed over the letter to the Dean and coming back to his son, he said – “Now I can die in peace.”
Nineteen years later, he died on July 2, 2002, and his body was donated to the Ramachandra Medical College at Chennai. His son had been transferred to Chennai by then, and Mr. Srinivasan was fortunate to spend the last 10 years of his life with him. The father was so passionate about the donation of his body that even a week before he passed away, he told the son that he has arranged for the ambulance to come and take away his body. All that the son needed to do was to call the particular number and everything will be taken care of.
Mr. Srinivasan was a very orthodox person who used to spend about three hours in puja every day. He was also the trustee of a temple. There was a lot of talk about his seemingly strange decision at that time. The priests strongly advised against it on the ground that such a thing is not acceptable because it is not mentioned in our Vedas and Shastras, and people will be reluctant to perform his last rites because the body will not be there.
But, as his son recounts, he said – “Look, I am not bothered about it. This is what I want to do. What happens after my body is donated is none of my business.”
This was his last wish, and the son dutifully made sure that it was fulfilled as the father desired.
2. ORGAN DONATION – FOUR PEOPLE BEGIN THEIR SECOND INNINGS:
After a sudden brain death of 65-year-old Y. K. Bhalla from Delhi, the family donated his kidneys, liver and cornea and gave a new lease of life to four patients
It is September 15, 2018, the birth day of Naina Bhalla, wife of Y. K. Bhalla. Sixty five year old Y. K. Bhalla, has been taking care of his brother-in-law, hospitalised in Fortis Hospital in New Friends Colony for ten days due to hip fracture. But that day Mr Bhalla decides to stay at home while his son Rajat Bhalla takes over the responsibility to oversee his ailing maternal uncle. As soon as Rajat reaches the hospital, he gets a call from his mother asking him to come back home, since his father was not feeling well.
While he was on his way back to home, he received another call from his mom, urging him to come at the earliest since his dad’s condition was critical. He was having a headache, feeling dizzy, and was sweating very heavily and getting cold sweats. He had a heart bypass surgery in 2006 and considering the current symptoms everyone thought it was a heart attack. His son took him to the nearby J P Hospital, immediately.
After a couple of tests, the doctors at J P Hospital declared that Mr. Bhalla had a massive heart attack and they are expecting more attacks and the treatment will be done accordingly. While the family heaved a sigh of relief that Mr. Bhalla managed to get treatment on time, fate had something else in store for the Bhallas.
By 4:30 in the afternoon, after all the tests, the cardiac surgeon informed that it was not a heart attack. They were all very relieved that everything was okay and things will be fine soon, but the surgeon said that what happened in the morning is not something normal and this needs to be investigated.
The cardiac surgeon recommended the case to a neuro surgeon who then did a couple of tests including MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) – a test done to generate images of the organs in the body. By 10 pm it was clear that Mr Bhalla was suffering from bilateral cerebral infarction (a condition in which the flow of blood or oxygen in brain is affected due to blockage or narrowing of the arteries) and it might need a surgery that too as early as that very night.
Mr. Bhalla who was completely conscious, asked his family to shift him to another private hospital in the city, where his past treatment had taken place.
By one in the night, he was successfully shifted and was under the care of doctors who assured the family that it was not a case for surgery and will be treated through medication. Though he was fine, by 4:30 AM he was shifted to ICU. But in just two hours, his situation deteriorated drastically and doctors had to put him on ventilator, calling for an urgent surgery.
On September 16, around 8:30 in the morning a surgery was performed but although the surgery went off well, Mr. Bhalla’s situation was critical and he remained on ventilator for next 24 hours. On Monday (September 17) afternoon, doctors reduced the life support to minimum and asked the family to wake up Mr. Bhalla, but unfortunately they failed and by Tuesday Mr. Bhalla was declared brain dead.
While all the organs were working as perfectly as possible, it was the brain that was continuously signalling that there are no chances of Mr. Bhalla coming back to life. Seeing this, the Senior Consultant, Neurology, suggested organ donation to the family and the Bhallas supported the decision whole heartedly. The only apprehension the family had was what if organs are misused, but the team of doctors in the hospital counseled the family and made the organ transplantation an easy process.
To confirm brain death, apnea test is done twice with a gap of 6 hours. In case of Mr. Bhalla, it was done at 6 PM on September 18 and around midnight. After the final declaration and consent from the family, organ retrieval process was initiated. While the liver and a kidney were transplanted at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, the second kidney was allocated to another private hospital in Delhi by National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) and cornea was transported to AIIMS.
One of the kidneys gave a new lease of life to a 41-year-old who was on dialysis for 18 years. The recipient suffering from chronic kidney failure had to wait for so long as there was no suitable donor in the family. The liver went to a 48-year-old suffering from Liver Cirrhosis for last four years.
The family feels that Mr. Bhalla might not be with them anymore, but he is living in others and that is what makes them happy.
3. THIS DURGA SAVES THREE LIVES BY DONATING HER ORGANS:
On the auspicious day of Maha Sashthi (a day that is considered as the start of Durga Puja) in 2017, as people across India celebrated the arrival of Maa Durga and sought blessings from her, another Durga, a homemaker, proved to be a blessing for three critical patients in Kolkata. Family of the 68-year-old Durga took the decision of donating her organs after she was declared brain dead by Apollo Gleneagles Hospital. Durga Sadhu succumbed to heavy intracranial bleeding on Monday evening. Her family donated her two kidneys and liver to two renal failure patients and one liver failure patient.
As soon as the family gave consent, doctors at the Apollo hospital alerted the authorities at the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), that monitors the entire process from procurement of organs and tissues to transplantation when organ is allocated. Based on the data available with the ROTTO, three patients waiting on the organ transplant list at the state-run Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital (SSKM) hospital were selected. Different series of tests like cross-matching were conducted to determine if the donor’s blood is compatible with the blood of an intended recipient.
To ensure that no time is wasted between organ retrieval and transplantation, a Green Corridor with the help from Kolkata Police was created between the SSKM and Apollo hospital covering a distance of 12 kilometres.
Meanwhile, the recipients at the SSKM hospital were prepped and kept ready. The transplantation took place as soon as the organs arrived. After the three transplants, the condition of the patients improved.
Besides, liver and kidneys, Durga’s skin has also been preserved at the skin bank of the SSKM Hospital and corneas were sent to a private eye hospital in the city for preservation.
This was the ninth deceased organ donation in Kolkata in 2017. A few days before this, two heart transplants were carried out in less than 24 hours in the city. A 600 km green corridor was also set up from Patna to the city for the transplantation. Following a heart transplant on a 51-year-old man in a city hospital, another transplant was carried out on a young woman in another health facility. The heart for the second transplant was harvested from a 19-year-old youth, who was declared brain dead at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Patna after suffering an accident the previous day. His family gave the consent to donate their son’s organs like heart, liver and kidneys.
In the same week, another 51-year-old man got a new lease of life. The organ, harvested at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, was flown to the city of Kolkata in a chartered plane. It was brought to Fortis Hospital, Anandapur, in the southern part of the city, from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International airport through a green corridor, covering a distance of 26 kilometres in 16 minutes.
4. ORGAN DONATION : 15 YEAR OLD GIRL BRINGS JOY TO FIVE FAMILIES IN KOLKATA:
A brain dead 15-year-old brought joy to at least five families who received her two kidneys, liver, corneas and skin graft in Kolkata. Mallika Majumder was declared brain dead by the state-run Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (IPGMER), Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital (SSKM) Hospital, on August 19,2018. The girl, who hailed from Siliguri, was diagnosed with a brain lesion after being admitted on July 23 and had slipped into coma on August 14.
According to her father, he and other relatives were told by the doctors that there is no possibility of the young girl returning to life once she was declared brain dead. They were then convinced that if her organs could be transplanted on other persons she will continue to live among others. And that will be their biggest consolation.
Mallika’s kidneys were successfully transplanted to Moumita Chakraborty of Khardah and Sanjib Das of Sodepur in North 24 Parganas district at SSKM Hospital by midnight.
The girl’s cornea was also donated to a patient at SSKM and part of her skin was grafted on a burn patient. While all the other organs could be successfully transplanted within the IPGMER SSKM compound, the liver was taken to a private hospital off E M Bypass through the green channel corridor facilitated by Kolkata Police early in the morning. The recipient was a 44-year-old person from Hyderabad who was flown into the city previous night and the liver was successfully implanted after a five-hour long operation.
A relative of Das, who was a recipient of one of the kidneys, said, “I will not belittle Mallika’s parents and the doctors by thanking them. Words fail to express our emotions.”
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